THE BALFOUR VISIT 

HOW AMERICA RECEIVED HER 
DISTINGUISHED GUEST; AND THE 
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CONFERENCES 
IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1917 

Edited by CHARLES HANSON TOWNE 




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THE BALFOUR VISIT 

CHARLES HANSON TOWNE 




THE RIGHT HON. A. J. BALFOUR, O.M., M.P. 

Head of the Mission. 

Some time Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of 

Great Britain and Ireland. 



THE 

BALFOUR VISIT 



HOW AMERICA RECEIVED HER 
DISTINGUISHED GUEST; AND THE 
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CONFERENCES 
IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1917 



EDITED BY 

CHARLES HANSON TOWNE 




NEW YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



, A v ^ V- 



i>y^ 



COPYRIGHT, 1917, 
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



HOV I2I9I7 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



©CI.A479050 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

BALFOUR CAME— AND CONQUERED. . 9 

BALFOUR'S TACT 11 

THE ARRIVAL OF THE MISSION 15 

BALFOUR'S FIRST WORDS . . 21 

THE RECEPTION IN WASHINGTON . 24 

THE FIRST MEETING WITH THE PRESIDENT ... 26 

SEEKING NO FORMAL ALLIANCE 27 

THE GREAT DAY AT MT. VERNON ....... 30 

BALFOUR'S HUMANITY 33 

GETTING DOWN TO WORK 35 

ENTERTAINING THE MISSION 36 

EDITORIAL PRAISE 37 

ATTENDING CONGRESS . . . . . 40 

THE NEW YORK WELCOME 43 

THE BANQUET AT THE WALDORF-ASTORIA .... 47 

THE MEANING OF THE WAR 49 

THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE LUNCHEON .... 53 

A MESSAGE TO THE STEEL WORKERS . . ' . . . . 59 

BALFOUR VISITS ROOSEVELT 59 

HONOURED BY THE PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY . . 60 

RICHMOND 63 

CHICAGO REGRETFULLY OMITTED 66 

THE PRESIDENT CALLS ON BALFOUR 67 

THE SPEECH BEFORE THE COTTON MANUFACTURERS 68 

THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB SPEECH 69 

v 



vi CONTENTS 

PAGE 

BACK TO CANADA 76 

IN OTTAWA 77 

MONTREAL— AND HOME AGAIN 79 

MR. BALFOUR'S FAREWELL 79 

THE SPEECH BEFORE THE EMPIRE PARLIAMENTARY 

ASSOCIATION . 82 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

THE RT. HON. A. J. BALFOUR, O.M., M.P., HEAD OF THE 

MISSION Frontispiece- 

PAGE 

THE MISSION BEFORE THE BRECKENRIDGE-LONG 
MANSION IN WASHINGTON, D. C 16 

IAN MALCOLM, ESQ., M.P., PARLIAMENTARY PRIVATE 

SECRETARY TO MR. BALFOUR 3 a^ 

LIEUT.-GENERAL G. T. M. BRIDGES, C.M.G., D.S.O., AND 
REAR-ADMIRAL SIR DUDLEY DE CHAIR, R.N., K.C.B., 
M.V.O., OFFICER OF THE LEGION OF HONOR . . 50^ 

THE HON. SIR ERIC DRUMMOND, K.C.H.G., C.B., PRI- 
VATE SECRETARY TO MR. BALFOUR 68^ 



IX 



THE BALFOUR VISIT 



THE BALFOUR VISIT 



BAI^OUR CAME) — AND CONQUERED 

Great Britain could not have made a happier 
choice in the man who represented her in the 
United States immediately after America entered 
the Great War. 

The Right Honourable Arthur James Balfour, 
M. P., O. M., bears a name known and revered on 
both sides of the Atlantic. His coming was hailed 
as a great event. His dignity, his poise, his tact, 
his vast experience in diplomatic affairs, his suc- 
cess as a speaker, both as to manner and matter, 
his age — everything was in his favour. We 
Americans were well aware of his long and won- 
derful career in England. We had not forgotten 
the splendid work he had done as Prime Minister, 
when, in 1902, he succeeded Lord Salisbury. We 
had not forgotten his significant pamphlet on 
"Insular Free Trade;" and we recalled how, in 
1904, when the Russian-Japanese War seemed 
certain to cause serious complications in England, 
Balfour, with infinite patience and tact, tided 

9 



10 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

over and smoothed out the unhappy incident of 
the firing by the Russian Baltic fleet on the Eng- 
lish fishing fleet in the North Sea. We likewise 
remembered that his institution of the permanent 
Committee of Imperial Defence, and of the New 
Army Council, during the same year, were move- 
ments of the greatest significance and importance. 
Then, too, we knew Mr. Balfour not only as a 
statesman of the rarest gifts, but as a writer of 
many notable volumes, a student, a profound 
thinker, a man who might easily have made his 
mark as a philosopher if diplomatic life had not 
called him more insistently. 

The United States entered this tremendous 
conflict early in April, 1917, and instantly 
both the British and French governments de- 
cided to send to our shores an extraordinary 
commission, the purpose of which would be 
the expression of the appreciation of our 
stand. This commission was, among other 
things, to discuss with us how best we might 
serve the Allied nations already at war, and to 
learn how they could secure our most effective 
co-operation in the struggle. For things had to 
be done, and quickly. Each day's delay was dan- 
gerous, and England, in particular, did not wish 
us to repeat her errors, so tragic in their results. 
Her friendly hand reached us from across the 
sea; and we clasped it when we greeted Balfour. 



BALFOUR'S TACT! 11 

bawour's tact 

Mr. Balfour came to this country deeply con- 
scious of America's susceptibilities and sensitive- 
nesses, deeply aware, too, of the irritation aroused 
by the protests of two and a half years of neu- 
trality and of feeling that was chronically anti- 
British. That the mission succeeded at all is due 
to a breadth of vision on Mr. Balfour's part 
which will rank as one of the cardinal points of 
Anglo-American relations, and to as finely devel- 
oped and executed a publicity system as it is pos- 
sible to imagine. 

From Mr. Balfour down to the humblest mem- 
ber of the mission ran the constant statement that 
the British had come to serve, not to interfere; 
to offer the fruits of their own bitter experiences, 
not to lay down for us what we should do. Never 
once did a member of the mission make himself 
obtrusive or officious; never once was the lesson 
taught by the master mind at the head forgotten. 

None of the mission presumed to advise what 
the United States should do. Instead, all of them 
met questions somewhat in this way: "Well, in 
England we were faced with somewhat similar 
conditions and came to such and such a decision. 
Now this decision worked out so and so." The 
American could take it or leave it; there was no 
obligation on either side. Nevertheless, as one 
would predict, he most often chose to take it. 



12 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

Of course the most difficult part of the mission 
was its presentation to the American public in 
such a way as to stir interest and enthusiasm and 
prevent any possible unpleasantness from the 
newness and unexpectedness of the Alliance. 
Mr. Balfour himself was a master in this art, 
both in the magnetism of his appearance and in 
the warmth and appropriateness of his speeches. 
Obviously, however, he was too occupied to pre- 
pare a detailed publicity campaign. 

This work he entrusted to Mr. Geoffrey Butler, 
who had formerly handled American news at the 
Foreign Office. He met the correspondents twice 
daily to outline the work of the mission, discuss 
special subjects, and arrange individual inter- 
views. He found the press voracious and he 
satisfied it. He first suggested to Mr. Balfour 
that he should address all the correspondents; 
then that General Bridges speak of the evils of 
the voluntary system; Admiral de Chair of sub- 
marines ; Major Rees of aeroplanes ; Sir Hartman 
Lever of finance; Mr. Anderson of wheat; Mr. 
Amos of the British priority system; Lord 
Eustace Percy of shipping; Mr. Malcolm of Red 
Cross work and the identification of the dead. 
Finally Mr. Balfour in farewell addressed the 
National Press Club. 

These interviews were not perfunctory. Each 
official told his story, after which the correspond- 



BALFOUR'S TACT! 13 

ents, varying from fifteen to one hundred, were 
free to draw him out on any line desired. The 
press, keen and eager, new to the war, drew 
upon the Britishers' experiences with avidity and 
flooded the wires with fascinating stories for the 
newest belligerent people. That so many officials 
spoke with such freedom as they did is an un- 
dying tribute to the spirit with which Mr. Balfour 
had pervaded the mission and to the relations 
which were at once established with the press. 

Strangely enough, it was the first of such inter- 
views, that with General Bridges, which for a 
brief nervous time threatened an explosion. The 
General, a huge, strapping soldier who had never 
made a speech in his life and who did not know 
how to mince words, came out flatly against the 
voluntary system at a time when a sensitive and 
susceptible Congress was wrestling with that fun- 
damental subject. General Bridges, speaking 
only of England's experience, shot that system 
into a thousand fallacies which flared out from 
every newspaper heading almost before the words 
were cold. 

Every one's breath was held to see what Con- 
gress would do. Spectres rose of anti-British 
speeches, interference with the prerogatives of 
the legislature, etc., but by good fortune there 
was so much vital meat in what the General had 
said and so much of a cry of anguish from those 



14j THE BALFOUR VISIT 

of England who had suffered under the voluntary 
system that Congress spent all its time reading 
the good sense he had uttered instead of criti- 
cising the policy behind his utterance. And then 
they voted for conscription. 

The success of this first interview set the pace 
for the others, and one expert after another told 
his story to the press with a confidence that all 
were working to the same end. None of the 
others, as it happened, was on such hair-trigger 
subjects as General Bridges', but they were none 
the less interesting. Just how much educational 
material went out from Washington because of 
this liberal publicity policy it is impossible even 
to approximate; but certain it is that it opened 
a new era of friendliness between the two coun- 
tries. 

The mission was forced on its first arrival to 
waste considerable time, as most of its experts 
could, naturally enough, find no corresponding 
officials in the American government with whom 
to negotiate. It had come to this country as a 
complete war organism, equipped with experts in 
many lines ; such as a wheat commissioner, a pri- 
ority expert, a trade regulator, and other special- 
ists, who at once made evident the gaps in 
America's war organisation. The needs of peace 
had not developed powerful bureaus to meet the 
necessities which two and a half years of war 



THE ARRIVAL OF THE MISSION 15 

had shown to exist in Europe, but every moment 
wasted had its recompense in suggestiveness to 
this country. Probably in no other way would 
America's needs have been illuminated more 
quickly and constructively. 

TH3 ARRIVAL OF TH£ MISSION 

It was on April eleventh that the British Com- 
missioners embarked on a fast ship, and secretly 
began the voyage to America. There was, of 
course, great danger of German spies ; but every 
precaution was taken, and no untoward incident 
marred the trip. A close watch was kept for the 
ubiquitous submarine; but, fortunately, no peri- 
scope appeared; and, after an uneventful journey, 
the Commission touched shore at Halifax on 
April twentieth. They immediately crossed to 
St. John, where a train awaited them and took 
them to the tiny village of McAdam, just beyond 
the International Bridge. This is the structure, 
most people will remember, that Werner Horn, 
formerly a German officer, tried to wreck with 
dynamite. 

The Foreign Minister and former Premier's 
personal staff included such celebrities as the 
Hon. Sir Eric Drummond, K. C. M. G., C. B. ; 
Ian Malcolm, M. P. ; Cecil Dormer, and Geoffrey 
Butler. Sir Eric Drummond is a brother-in-law 
of the late Duke of Norfolk, and a prominent 



16 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

Roman Catholic layman; but perhaps the most 
interesting thing about him is the fact that he 
has been private secretary (in England this is 
equivalent more or less to assistant) to Mr. 
Asquith, Sir E. Grey and Mr. Balfour. This has 
probably given him as much insight into the 
affairs of Europe as any man now serving in the 
public interests. 

Mr. Malcolm has been, at various times, an 
attache of the British Embassies in Petrograd, 
Berlin, and Paris, and, during the present con- 
flict, he has been the British Red Cross Officer in 
Russia, Switzerland, and France. 

The other members of the distinguished party 
included Lieutenant General T. M. Bridges, 
C. M. G., D. S. O. ; Captain H. H. Spender-Clay, 
M. P. ; Rear Admiral Sir Dudley R. S. de Chair, 
K. C. B., M. V. O.; Fleet Paymaster Vincent 
Law ford, D. S. O., Admiralty, and Lord Cun- 
lifle, Governor of the Bank of England. Captain 
Spender-Clay, it will be recalled, married the 
daughter of William Waldorf Astor. 

The Commission also included the following: 

War Office. — Colonel Goodwin, Colonel Langhorne, 
Major L. W. B. Rees, V. C, M. C, Royal Flying 
Corps, and Major C. E. Dansey. 

Blockade Department Experts. — Lord Eustace 
Percy, of the Foreign Office ; A. A. Paton, of the For- 
eign Office; F. P. Robinson, of the Board of Trade; 
S. McKenna, of the War Trade Intelligence Depart- 



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THE ARRIVAL OF THE MISSION 17 

ment, and M. D. Peterson of the Foreign Trade De- 
partment, Foreign Office. 

Wheat Commission. — A. A. Anderson, Chairman, 
and Mr. Vigor. 

Munitions. — W. T. Layton, Director of Require- 
ments and Statistics Branch, Secretariat of the Min- 
istry of Munitions; C. T. Phillips, American and 
Transport Department, Ministry of Munitions; Cap- 
tain Leeming, Mr. Amos. 

Ordnance and Lines of Communication. — Captain 
Heron. 

Supplies and Transports. — Major Puckle. 

It may not be amiss to tell here, with the special 
permission of Mr. Frederic Coleman, who wrote 
that interesting book, "From Mons to Ypres with 
General French," the following story of one mem- 
ber of the Balfour party who is greatly loved. I 
refer to Lieutenant General Bridges. Here is 
the tale: 

Major, now Lieutenant General, Tom Bridges, 
of the Fourth Dragoon Guards, had been sent 
into St. Quentin on Friday afternoon to see if 
more stragglers could be found. In the square 
near the Mairie he found a couple of hundred or 
more men of various detachments, who were 
seated on the pavement in complete exhaustion 
and utter resignation to what appeared their in- 
ability to rejoin the army, which had retreated 
far to the southward. 

They, too, expected the Germans momentarily. 



18 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

A couple of half-crazed, irresponsible chaps had 
preached some rot to them that made them think 
themselves abandoned to their fate. Bridges 
needed but a moment to see how far gone they 
were, how utterly and hopelessly fatigued. No 
peremptory order, no gentle request, no clever 
cajolery would suffice. With most of them the 
power to move seemed to have gone with cease- 
less tramping, without food or sleep, for the 
thirty-six hours past. 

A brilliant idea came to the big, genial Major. 
Entering a toy shop, he bought a toy drum and 
a penny whistle. He strapped the little drum to 
his belt. 

"Can you play 'The British Grenadiers' ?" he 
asked his trumpeter. 

"Sure, sir," was the reply. 

In a twinkling the pair were marching round 
the square, the high treble of the tiny toy whistle 
rising clear and shrill. "But of all the world's 
brave heroes, There's none that can compare, 
With a tow, row, row, with a tow, row, row, To 
the British Grenadiers." 

Round they came, the trumpeter, caught on 
the wings of the Major's enthusiasm, putting his 
very heart and soul into every inspiring note. 

Bridges, supplying the comic relief with the 
small sticks in his big hands, banged away on 
the drum like mad. 



THE ARRIVAL OF THE MISSION 19 

They reached the recumbent group. They 
passed its tired length. Now they came to the 
last man. Will they feel the spirit of the strain- 
ing notes, rich with the tradition of the grand old 
air? Will they catch the spirit of the big-hearted 
Major, who knows so well just how the poor lads 
feel, and seeks that spot of humour in Tommy's 
make-up that has so often proved his very salva- 
tion ? The spark has caught ! Some with tears in 
their eyes, some with a roar of laughter, jump 
to their feet and fall in. The weary feet, sore 
and bruised, tramp the hard cobbles unconscious 
of their pain. Stiffened limbs answer to call of 
newly awakened wills. 

"With a tow, row, row, with a tow, row, row, 
to the British Grenadiers." They are singing it 
now as they file in long column down the street 
after the big form hammering the toy drum, and 
his panting trumpeter "blowing his head off" be- 
side him. 

"Go on, Colonel ! We'll follow you to hell," 
sings out a brawny Irishman behind who can just 
hobble along on his torn feet. 

Never a man of all the lot was left behind. 

Down the road, across the bridge, mile after 
mile towards Roye. The trumpeter, blown, sub- 
sides for a while, then, refreshed, takes up the 
burden of the noble tune again. 

At last Tom Bridges turned and said : "Now, 



20 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

boys, ahead of you is a town where you can get 
food and drink and a bit of rest before you go on. 
It isn't far. Good luck!" 

But not they. They were not going to lose 
their new-found patron. Clamour rose, shrill 
and eager. "Don't leave us, Colonel," they 
begged. "Don't, for God's sake, leave us ! They 
all left us but you. We'll follow you anywhere, 
but where to go when you leave we don't know 
at all." 

So Bridges toiled on to Roye with them, got 
them food and billets, turned them over to some 
one who would see they got on to their commands 
in some way, and went back to duty with his 
regiment, arriving at two o'clock in the morning. 

Big Tom Bridges ! Indeed, he had more than 
once earned the name, but never more gallantly 
and wisely than on that afternoon in August in 
the turmoil of the great retreat. 

While the British Commission was still on the 
Canadian border, the American Reception Com- 
mittee quietly left Washington on April fifteenth. 
It was headed by Breckinridge Long, who is 
Third Assistant Secretary of State; Rear Ad- 
miral Fletcher, and Major General Leonard 
Wood, with Colonel Mackie, also on the Root 
Commission in Russia. They were given to un- 
derstand that the British party had left two days 
earlier than it had, and they waited with anxiety 



BALFOUR'S FIRST WORDS 21 

from Monday until Friday afternoon, when a 
message from Halifax relieved their vigil, and 
caused them to press on to the border in a flight 
by night. Arriving at the tiny frontier town of 
Vanceboro, Maine, on the twenty-first, the 
American party, together with the army and 
navy representatives in full uniform, descended 
to a dilapidated station platform, the forlornest 
place one could imagine. To add to their trou- 
bles, the spot was enveloped by a cold mist, so 
thick that it could be cut with a knife. Of course, 
in some mysterious way, the fact had leaked out 
that such distinguished guests were expected in 
this out-of-the-way place, and a conglomerate 
crowd quickly gathered, made up of French Ca- 
nadians, railway workers, farmers, and a few 
little children, the latter proudly bearing three 
tattered American flags. 

It was in such surroundings that the great 
British Commission received its formal greeting 
on American soil. There was no fanfare of 
trumpets, no beating of drums, no sounding of 
brass and cymbals : just a quiet, homely reception 
on the part of Secretary Long after the special 
train had crossed the bridge. 

bai^our's first words 

The Commission was due to arrive in Wash- 
ington at three o'clock on Sunday afternoon, 



22 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

April twenty-second. Just after leaving Vance- 
boro, in the dining-car, in time to reach the Sun- 
day papers, Mr. Balfour was induced to make a 
statement to one or two special correspondents; 
and his first words were these : 

All will agree that my first duty as head of a diplo- 
matic mission is to pay my respects to the head of the 
State to which I have been sent, and no public expres- 
sion of opinion on points of policy would, I think, be 
useful or even tolerable until I have had the honour of 
conferring with your President and learning his views. 
I have not come here to make speeches or indulge in 
interviews, but to do what I can to make co-operation 
easy and effective between those who are striving with 
all their power to bring about a lasting peace by the 
only means that can secure it; namely, a successful 
war. 

Without, however, violating the rule I have just laid 
down, there are two things which I may permit my- 
self to say: one on my own behalf, the other on be- 
half of my countrymen in general. 

On my own behalf, let me express the deep gratifica- 
tion I feel at being connected in any capacity whatever 
with events which associate our countries in a common 
effort for a great ideal. 

On behalf of my countrymen, let me express our 
gratitude for all that the citizens of the United States 
of America have done to mitigate the lot of those who, 
in the allied countries, have suffered from the cruelties 
of the most deliberately cruel of all wars. To name no 
others, the efforts of Mr. Gerard to alleviate the condi- 
tion of British and other prisoners of war in Germany, 



BALFOUR'S FIRST WORDS 23 

and the administrative genius which Mr. Hoover has 
ungrudgingly devoted to the relief of the unhappy 
Belgians and French in the territories still in enemy 
occupation, will never be forgotten, while an inexhaust- 
ible stream of charitable effort has supplied medical 
and nursing skill to the service of the wounded and 
the sick. 

These are the memorable doings of a beneficent neu- 
trality. But the days of neutrality are, I rejoice to 
think, at an end, and the first page is being turned in 
a new chapter in the history of mankind. 

Your President, in a most apt and vivid phrase, has 
proclaimed that the world must be made safe for de- 
mocracy. Democracies, wherever they are to be found, 
and not least the democracies of the British Empire, 
will hail the pronouncement as a happy augury. 

That self-governing communities are not to be 
treated as negligible simply because they are small, 
that the ruthless domination of one unscrupulous 
power imperils the future of civilisation and the liber- 
ties of mankind, are truths of political ethics which 
the bitter experiences oi war are burning into the souls 
of all freedom-loving peoples. That this great peo- 
ple should have thrown themselves whole-heartedly 
into this mighty struggle, prepared for all the efforts 
and sacrifices that may be required to win success for 
this most righteous cause, is an. event at once so happy 
and so momentous that only the historian of the future 
will be able, as I believe, to measure its true propor- 
tions. 

The manuscript (in Mr. Balfour's handwrit- 
ing) of this, his first utterance on United States 



24 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

soil, is preserved in the Library of Princeton 
University. 

This speech was written by Mr. Balfour the 
night before he landed, sitting up late into the 
night in his cabin. It was substituted for a ver- 
sion previously written and rejected at the elev- 
enth hour on later consideration. Mr. Balfour 
never dictates. Everything is written in long 
hand and carefully revised. 

In this first utterance the trained diplomat was 
revealed, the man who knew his ground, who 
recognised his responsibilities. England must 
have been proud of this initial expression of her 
representative; as America was proud to re- 
ceive it. 

THS RECEPTION IN WASHINGTON 

Secretary of State Lansing, accompanied by 
Colonel W. W. Harts, the President's Aid; Frank 
L. Polk, Counsellor of the State Department and 
Assistant Secretary of State; Sir Cecil Spring- 
Rice, the British Ambassador; and several others 
equally notable, met the party when it arrived 
at the station in Washington. Two cavalry 
troops were likewise on hand, as a special escort, 
and the visitors were at once taken to the private 
residence of Franklin MacVeagh, former Secre- 
tary of the Treasury. Mr. MacVeagh had gra- 
ciously put his house at their disposal. 



THE RECEPTION IN WASHINGTON 25 

We Americans like distinguished visitors, and 
we make the most of them. If one comes with 
the right credentials, there is always a warm wel- 
come awaiting him. There are cheers all along 
the line of march after his ship comes in, and 
weeks of veritable holiday-making for any au- 
thentic representative of a friendly nation. Cer- 
tainly Mr. Balfour had no reason to complain of 
the reception which greeted him in Washington 
that first day. The streets and avenues were 
crowded with people anxious to pay him tribute, 
to bid him welcome. Everywhere cheers, and — -a 
novel experience — the hooting of motor horns. 
And everywhere flags and banners, for at last 
the Stars and Stripes could be displayed with the 
Union Jack. Our technical neutrality was over. 
There were no more fears. The die had been 
cast. And the people of America have seldom 
been happier. They were proud with an under- 
standable pride; and their eagerness to express 
their elation was almost pathetic. No one minded 
his tears; they were tears of joy — joy in a com- 
mon cause, the cause of humanity and righteous- 
ness. 

As one looks back now, it is easy to understand 
that there may have been a little confusion on 
the part of the Entente Powers concerning our 
attitude with regard to Germany. The Allies 
never had any misconception as to our stand on 



26 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

Prussian militarism, but they might have been 
justified in the belief that our policy and theirs, 
when it touched upon trade regulations, the treat- 
ment of neutrals, and plans for world reconstruc- 
tion after the war, would differ. Balfour's visit 
was made in order that these and kindred sub- 
jects should be brought out into the light; that 
we might get together amicably and swiftly, and 
crush once and for all the foul German propa- 
ganda that seemed to be forever in the air. Mr. 
Balfour was the driving force and actual chair- 
man of all the committees in which the mission 
worked. In his brain their work was all co-ordi- 
nated and divergencies of aim smoothed over. 

Balfour and Lansing were photographed to- 
gether, and the picture, now famous, went the 
rounds of the press. 

TH£ FIRST MEETING WITH TH£ PRESIDENT 

On the morning of April twenty-third the 
British Foreign Minister had his first interview 
with President Wilson; and that same evening 
the President and Mrs. Wilson gave a large din- 
ner at the White House in honour of the party. 
Here, perhaps, was formed in Mr. Balfour's mind 
that profound sentiment of admiration for Presi- 
dent Wilson of which, since he has returned, he 
has made no secret. 

It must be remembered that the French Com- 



SEEKING NO FORMAL ALLIANCE 27 

mission was also here at the same time ; and while 
Mr. Balfour was being greeted everywhere by 
the populace, General Joffre and M. Viviani were 
likewise being acclaimed. These were thrilling 
days in the Capitol. Events crowded on top of 
one another thick and fast, and the public was 
more than satisfied that the right representatives 
had been sent from both England and France. 

There is a pretty story told of Mr. Balfour's 
meeting the French Commission, standing, bare- 
headed, on the seat of a motor, backed into the 
crowd just outside the French Mission's house. 
The sight of the tall figure with the grey locks 
brought Viviani to his feet with a waving of his 
hat and a courteous, sweeping bow. 

SEEKING NO FORMAL AI,UANC£ 

It was on April twenty-fifth that Mr. Balfour, 
facing a semicircle of perhaps fifty correspond- 
ents in a beautiful room of the MacVeagh home, 
gave his first talk. The press had not expected 
a speech, and only the forethought of the repre- 
sentative of the Chicago Tribune, who had pro- 
vided a stenographer, preserved this speech in- 
tact. This is what Mr. Balfour said: 

I do not suppose that it is possible for you — I am 
sure it would not be possible for me were I in your 
place — to realise in concrete detail all that the war 



28 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

means to those who have been engaged in it for now 
two years and a half. That is a feeling which comes, 
and can only come, by actual experience. We on the 
other side of the Atlantic have been living in an at- 
mosphere of war since August, 191 4, and you cannot 
move about the streets, you cannot go about your daily 
business, even if your affairs be dissociated with the 
war itself, without having evidences of the war brought 
to your notice every moment. 

I arrived here on Sunday afternoon and went out 
in the evening after dark, and I was struck by a some- 
what unusual feeling which at the first moment I did 
not analyse; and suddenly it came upon me that this 
was the first time for two years and a half or more 
when I had seen a properly lighted street. There is 
not a street in London, there is not a street in any 
city in the United Kingdom in which after dark the 
whole community is not wrapped in a gloom exceed- 
ing that which must have existed before the invention 
of gas or electric lighting. But that is a small matter, 
and I mention it only because it happened to strike 
me as one of my earliest experiences in this city. 

Of course, the more tragic side of war is never, and 
cannot ever be, absent from our minds. I saw with 
great regret this morning in the newspapers that the 
son of Bonar Law, our Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
was wounded and missing in some of the operations 
now going on in Palestine, and I instinctively cast my 
mind back to the losses of this war in all circles, but 
as an illustration it seems to me impressive. I went 
over the melancholy list, and, if my memory serves 
me right, out of the small number of Cabinet 
Ministers, men of Cabinet rank who were serving the 
State when the war broke out in August, 1914, one 



SEEKING NO FORMAL ALLIANCE 29 

lias been killed in action, four at least have lost sons. 
That is the sort of things that have happened in quite 
a small and narrowly restricted class of men, but it is 
characteristic of what is happening throughout the 
whole country. 

The condition of France in that respect is evidently 
even more full of sorrow and tragedy than our own. 
because we had not a great army ; we had but a small 
army when war broke out, whereas the French Army 
was of the great Continental type, was on a war foot- 
ing, and was, from the very inception of military 
operations, engaged in sanguinary conflict with the 
common enemy. 

We have to-day among us a mission from France. 
I doubt not — indeed, I am fully convinced — that they 
will receive a welcome not less warm, not less heart- 
felt, than that which you have so generously and en- 
couragingly extended to us. That was, and certainly 
will be, increased by the reflection that one member 
of the mission is Marshal Joffre, who will go down 
through all time as the general in command of the 
allied forces at one of the most critical moments in 
the world's history. 

I remember when I was here before there was a 
book which was given as a prize in the schools called 
"The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World/' I do 
not know whether they all quite deserve that title, but 
there can be no doubt or question whatever that 
among the decisive battles of the world the Battle of 
the Marne was the most decisive. It was a turning 
point in the history of mankind, and I rejoice that the 
hero of that event is to-day coming among us and 
will join us, the British Nation, in laying before the 
people of the United States our gratitude for the sym- 



30 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

pathy which they have shown and are showing, and 
our warm confidence in the value of the assistance 
which they are affording the allied cause. 

Gentlemen, I do not believe that the magnitude of 
that assistance can by any possibility be exaggerated. 
I am told that there are some doubting critics who 
seem to think that the object of the mission of France 
and Great Britain to this country is to inveigle the 
United States out of its traditional policy and to en- 
tangle it in formal alliances, secret or public, with 
European powers. I cannot imagine any rumour with 
less foundation, nor can I imagine a policy sq utterly 
unnecessary. 

Our confidence in the assistance which we are going 
to get from this, community is not based upon such 
shallow considerations as those which arise out of 
formal treaties. No treaty could increase the un- 
doubted confidence with which we look to the United 
States, who, having come into the war, are going to 
see the war through. . f . I feel perfectly certain that 
you will throw into it all your unequalled, resources, 
all your powers of invention, of production, all your 
man power, all the resources of that country which 
has greater resources than any other country in the 
world ; and, already having come to the decision, noth- 
ing will turn you from it but success crowning our 
joint efforts. 

TH£ GR£AT DAY AT MT. VERNON 

When the French Commission visited the tomb 
of Washington at Mount Vernon on April 
twenty-ninth, a card attached to a wonderful 



THE GREAT DAY AT MT. VERNON 31 

wreath of lilies was placed beside a bronze palm 
which Marshal JofTre had laid on the marble sar- 
cophagus. On this card, in Mr. Balfour's own 
handwriting, were these beautiful words: 

"Dedicated by the British Mission to the im- 
mortal memory of George Washington, soldier, 
statesman, patriot, who would have rejoiced to 
see the country of which he was by birth a citi- 
zen, and the country his genius called into exist- 
ence, fighting side by side to save mankind from 
a military despotism." 

What greater tribute could he have paid the 
noble Washington? 

The day, which had been lowering and heavy 
as the official party glided down the Potomac on 
the Presidential Yacht May flower 2 and had even 
threatened rain as every one stood at attention at 
"Taps" opposite the historic mansion, suddenly 
broke into the promise of full sunshine as the 
half hundred spectators wound their way up to 
the silent sarcophagus. The foliage was rich in 
its spring newness and the three Allied flags, 
British, French, and American, lent another 
touch of colour as they flew proudly over the 
grave. 

After M. Viviani had delivered an impas- 
sioned speech, Secretary Daniels beckoned Mr. 
Balfour forward without introduction. The 
British Foreign Secretary advanced slowly be- 



32 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

fore the open sarcophagus, bare-headed and evi- 
dently deeply touched. Standing beneath his own 
flag, before the tomb of the man who tore the 
richest jewel from the British crown, with the 
sunlight playing through the cedar trees upon his 
finely chiselled features, he spoke slowly, feel- 
ingly, amidst a silence sacred to the scene. 

My friend and colleague, M. Viviani, in phrases 
burning with emotion, and in eloquent language, not 
only has paid tribute to the hero who is buried here, 
but has brought our thoughts down to the present 
crisis, the greatest in the world's history. He has 
told us of the people of France, England, Belgium, 
Russia, Italy, and Serbia who have sacrificed their 
lives for what they believe to be the cause of liberty. 
No spot on the face of the earth, where a speech in 
behalf of liberty might be made, could be more appro- 
priate than the tomb of Washington. 

Then came Marshal Joffre, with a brief but 
glowing tribute; and Mr. Balfour and General 
Bridges, Great Britain's chief army representa- 
tive in the mission, placed a British wreath above 
the tomb. Happily, then, the three flags of Great 
Britain, France, and the United States were 
rested upon it. A momentous occasion indeed, a 
day that will go down in history. For we were 
the allies at last of England and France! And 
here was concrete expression of the great truth. 

The handful of people who were privileged to 




IAN MALCOLM, ESQ., M.P. 

Parliamentary Private Secretary to Mr. Balfour. 
Red Cross Representative with the Mission. 



BALFOUR'S HUMANITY 33 

witness that scene were almost awed by its sig- 
nificance. None of them, it is safe to say, will 
ever forget it. And as Mr. Balfour and his fel- 
low missioners strolled about the spacious Mt. 
Vernon lawns afterwards and inspected every 
detail of the home with deep interest, the feeling 
of consecration still endured. 

bai^our's humanity 

Of course there were amusing incidents during 
Mr. Balfour's visit. He endeared himself to the 
people when they learned how democratic he was ; 
how he tried on several occasions to escape from 
the restraints of the diplomatic net. There is 
nothing that the American people like quite so 
well as that. A story went the rounds as to how, 
one day, when Mr. Balfour was invited to lunch 
with a friend of many years' standing, Mr. Henry 
White, he sought to evade the motor that was 
waiting at the door to conduct him. He slipped 
out of a side entrance, so that he might walk 
alone and in peace to the home of his friend. It 
was only a few squares, anyhow. Even the Scot- 
land Yard man who had accompanied him to 
America, was not aware that his distinguished 
charge had vanished until some time afterwards. 
Like royalty, Mr. Balfour was "found out"; and 
to his sorrow the occasion never presented itself 



84 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

again when he could repeat such a human 
escapade. 

Again, the American people were delighted 
with Mr. Balfour when they learned that he loved 
to read "penny dreadfuls." His delight in golf 
they could understand; indeed, they expected 
that : but to find that so great a personage actually 
lost himself in tales like "The Stain on the Stair- 
case" and "The Man With the Missing Toe" 
tickled their hearts. He was not a high-brow, 
after all ! But even if he was, he was the right 
kind of high-brow. And when he couldn't re- 
member the names of the authors of his favourite 
shockers, but confessed this an example of human 
ingratitude, the people loved him all over again. 
He was so human, and he "made no bones," as 
we say, about admitting his weaknesses. It was 
all along the line that Balfour came — and con- 
quered. 

He even conquered — sometimes — when he 
played tennis with Secretary McAdoo and Coun- 
sellor Polk, and others. And he won the hearts 
of the newspaper men when he announced that 
the press would be received twice daily in the 
Hotel Shoreham, not up-town; another example 
of his thoughtfulness. 

Mr. Balfour dispelled a rather general but 
absurd misconception held on each side of the 
Atlantic. He showed America, for instance, that 



GETTING DOWN TO WORK 35 

Great Britain's greatest statesmen are often 
merely "Mr." He showed England, as Lord 
Eustace Percy pointed out, that it was not neces- 
sary to send a wild man to this country. 

GETTING DOWN TO WORK 

It was soon after the discovery of these human 
traits in the great statesman that an informal 
conference was held at the Balfour headquarters. 
Only members of the British party and of the 
staff of the British Embassy were permitted to 
be present. The talk, it became known, was of 
a most general kind; the chief desire was to get 
down to work, to organise some plan so that the 
mission could effectively handle affairs as they 
came up ; but this could not be done, it was agreed, 
until the actual arrival of the French diplomats. 
Both the British and the French wished to co- 
ordinate and to work in the closest harmony. 

At the Pan-American Union Building a recep- 
tion was held on the evening of the same day 
(April twenty- fourth), so that Mr. Balfour and 
his confreres could meet certain members of Con- 
gress and other Government officials whom they 
might not see again in the course of their regular 
work. Secretary Lansing stood at the head of 
the receiving line. Several dinners had been 
given, previous to the reception, at the homes of 
various Secretaries. Mr. Lansing, Mr. Baker, 



36 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

Mr. Daniels and Mr. McAdoo were among those 
who entertained. 

It was understood that Mr. Balfour would pre- 
sent, not so much the British questions involved, 
as a whole picture of the problems confronting 
the Entente Alliance. As one newspaper wisely 
pointed out, "England has very largely supplied 
some of her Allies with both finance and shipping, 
and it is impossible to go into her financial or 
shipping situation without examining their reflex 
on the other co-operating nations." 

ENTERTAINING THE MISSION 

Socially, as befitted their position, the mission 
was lionised. Mr. Balfour, besides his formal 
call and dinner with President Wilson, dined pri- 
vately at the White House twice and met the 
President on several other occasions for impor- 
tant negotiations. The two statesmen are un- 
commonly alike, in their intellectuality, their 
rather cloistered lives, and their manner of ap- 
proach. 

Mr. Balfour dined also with Secretary Lansing 
and the other cabinet members, and was tendered 
two large official receptions, one by Secretary 
Lansing, and the other by Ambassador Spring- 
Rice at the British Embassy. Beyond that he 
was entertained by many former friends and 
well-known Washingtonians. 



EDITORIAL PRAISE 3*7 

The other members of the mission, apart from 
their work, found time for considerable personal 
pleasure. Rear Admiral Sir Dudley R. S. de 
Chair was tendered a very formal reception, in 
the name of the British Navy, by the Navy 
League of the United States; and, later, sig- 
nalised the joy of his Navy at having American 
destroyers in British waters, by laying a wreath 
on Admiral Dewey's tomb. General Bridges ad- 
dressed a large gathering of publishers in New 
York, and Ian Malcolm spoke before the Ameri- 
can Red Cross in Washington. Sir Eric Drum- 
mond broke the proverbial silence of the British 
civil service by speaking very frankly, before the 
University Club, of the diplomacy leading up to 
the w r ar. 

EDITORIAL PRAISE 

Practically every newspaper in the United 
States published glowing tributes to Mr. Balfour. 
The editors were generous in their praise of him, 
and convinced that he was the right man in the 
right place. 

In its issue of April twenty-third the New 
York Times printed a long leader, in the course 
of which it said: 

In all the history of the United States there is no 
precedent for Mr. Balfour's visit, nothing to which 
it can be compared, nothing that resembles it even re- 



38 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

motely. Of all the long list of distinguished Euro- 
peans who have come to this country there is not one 
whose visit has any likeness to his. Most of them 
came as sightseers. 

To Mr. Balfour's expression of "deep gratification' ' 
for the privilege and the opportunity of "being con- 
nected in any capacity whatever with events which as- 
sociate Great Britain and the United States in a com- 
mon effort for a great ideal" the American people re- 
spond with the expression of a sentiment not less pro- 
found, the satisfaction they have that in taking up 
arms in a war for freedom, justice, and humanity they 
place themselves beside the great people of their own 
blood and speech with whom they share those tradi- 
tions and principles of democracy which are now bat- 
tling against absolutism in its last stronghold. A more 
heartfelt welcome we have never given to visitors from 
another land than that we now give to the gentlemen 
of this commission and the distinguished British states- 
man who is its chief. From the very beginning of 
the war, throughout this great crisis of civilisation, as 
Mr. Beck has said, our hearts and minds have dis- 
dained to be neutral. We have thrown off the ham- 
pering restraints of neutrality and upon that first page 
in the new chapter of the history of mankind of which 
Mr. Balfour speaks we are resolved to write a record 
of American service worthy of this Nation, worthy of 
the cause we serve and of the obligation we have as- 
sumed to our heroic allies. 

The members of the British Commission come here 
upon no mission of ceremony. With them and with 
the French Commissioners soon to arrive our Govern- 
ment has serious business of consultation and prepara- 
tion for the part we are to take in beating down the 



EDITORIAL PRAISE 39 

enemy's resistance. Our pledge of service in the work 
of making democracy secure is unconditioned. With 
all our resources we commit ourselves to the endeav- 
our. From Mr. Balfour, Secretary of State for For- 
eign Affairs, from the men of high authority in 
military and naval affairs and in finance who accom- 
pany him, and from the French Commissioners of 
like distinction and authority we shall learn how we 
can best serve the common cause. They come, as was 
plainly intimated in their behalf last night, not to ad- 
vise or suggest, but to> give information that we may 
profit by their experience. We are making ready with 
such speed as can be commanded by a nation that only 
at long intervals hears the call of war. In consulta- 
tion with our allies, and benefiting by their knowledge, 
we shall be able to determine in what ways our strength 
can most effectively be put forth. 

The conferences at Washington, other conferences 
in capitals of our allies to which American Commis- 
sioners will be sent, the union of forces for a common 
end to be gained by cost and toil and sacrifice common 
to all will bind us to our allies in relations of friend- 
ship, esteem, and interest that will be of inestimable 
value for good understanding, for human progress, 
for peace, for the future welfare of mankind. In our 
detachment from the war we have felt that we were 
in some danger of being left outside the circle of mu- 
tual friendships that will bring together the great na- 
tions that have fought the fight against the common 
peril, a menace to us as to them. That fear we can 
now dismiss. We are one with Great Britain, with 
France, with Russia, Italy, Belgium, with the other 
Old World nations and with those sister republics of 
the New World who have made declaration of service 



40 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

for the "great ideal" of a world made safe for democ- 
racy. 

ATTENDING CONGRESS 

On May fifth Mr. Balfour was invited to at- 
tend Congress. This was an astonishing event; 
for it was the only time in the history of the 
United States that a British official had been 
asked to address the House of Representatives. 
Mr. Malcolm and Mr. Spender-Clay, both mem- 
bers of the House of Commons, were accommo- 
dated with special seats on the floor of the House, 
as a delicate compliment to the House of Com- 
mons. Earlier in the week Marshal Joffre and 
M. Viviani had been welcomed in the Capitol, 
but the cheers that greeted Mr. Balfour were 
even greater. 

President Wilson, on this momentous occasion, 
had slipped into the Executive Gallery. No one 
saw him for a long time. When, finally, he was 
recognised, the entire House rose, and for several 
minutes there was a scene, the like of which has 
not been witnessed in years. An ovation came 
again when Speaker Clark introduced Mr. Bal- 
four, who seemed deeply affected by the thrilling 
reception he received. President Wilson joined 
in the applause and cheering; and when the 
speaker had concluded and stood below the ros- 
trum with General Bridges, Admiral de Chair, 
and the British Ambassador, the President 



ATTENDING CONGRESS 41 

quietly found his way down-stairs and walked 
down the line with the Congressmen. 

Mr. Balfour made the following address be- 
fore the House of Representatives: 

Will you permit me, on behalf of my friends and 
myself, to offer you my deepest and sincerest thanks 
for the rare and valued honour which you have done 
us by receiving us here to-day ? We all feel the great- 
ness of this honour, but I think to none of us can it 
come home so closely as to one who, like myself, has 
been for forty-three years in the service of a free as- 
sembly like your own. 

I rejoice to think that a member, a very old mem- 
ber, I am sorry to say, of the British House of Com- 
mons, has been received here to-day by this great sister 
assembly with such kindness as you have shown to me 
and to my friends. 

Ladies and gentlemen, these two assemblies are 
the greatest and the oldest of the free assemblies now 
governing great nations in the world. The history, in- 
deed, of the two is very different. The beginnings of 
the British House of Commons go back to a dim his- 
toric past, and its full rights and status have only been 
conquered and permanently secured after centuries of 
political struggle. 

Your fate has been a happier one. You were 
called into existence at a much later stage of social 
development. You came into being complete and per- 
fected and all your powers determined and your place 
in the constitution secured beyond chance of revolu- 
tion, but though the history of these two great assem- 
blies is different, each of them represents the great 
.democratic principle to which we look forward as the 



42 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

security for the future peace of the world. All of the 
free assemblies now to be found governing the great 
nations of the earth have been modelled either upon 
{/our practice or upon ours, or upon both combined. 

Mr. Speaker, the compliment paid to the mission 
from Great Britain by such an assembly and upon such 
an occasion is one not one of us is ever likely to for- 
get; but there is something, after all, even deeper and 
more significant in the circumstances under which I 
now have the honour to address you than any which 
arise out of the interchange of courtesies, however 
sincere, between two great and friendly nations. 

We all, I think, feel instinctively that this is one of 
the great moments in the history of the world, and that 
what is now happening on both sides of the Atlantic 
represents the drawing together of great and free peo- 
ples for mutual protection against the aggression of 
military despotism. 

I am not one of those, none of you are among 
those, who are such bad democrats as to say that de- 
mocracies make no mistakes. All free assemblies have 
made blunders, sometimes they have committed crimes. 
Why is it then that we look forward to the spirit of 
free institutions, and especially among our present 
enemies, as one of the greatest guarantees of the 
future peace of the world? I will say to you, gentle- 
men, how it seems to me. 

It is quite true that the people and the representa- 
tives of the people may be betrayed by some momen- 
tary gust of passion into a policy which they ultimately 
deplore, but it is only a military despotism of the Ger- 
man type that can, through generations, if need be, 
pursue steadily, remorselessly, unscrupulously, and ap- 
pallingly the object of dominating the civilisation of 



THE NEW YORK WELCOME 43 

mankind. And, mark you, this evil, this menace, un- 
der which we are now suffering, is not one which di- 
minishes with the growth of knowledge and progress 
of material civilisation, but, on the contrary, it in- 
creases with them. 

When I was young we used to flatter ourselves that 
progress inevitably meant peace, and that growth of 
knowledge was always accompanied as its natural fruit 
by the growth of good-will among the nations of the 
earth. Unhappily, we know better now, and we know 
there is such a thing in the world as a power which 
can with unvarying persistency focus all the resources 
of knowledge and of civilisation into the one great 
task of making itself the moral and material master 
of the world. It is against that danger that we, the 
free peoples of Western civilisation, have banded our- 
selves together." 

TH£ N£W YORK WELCOME 

In New York, where the members of the Brit- 
ish Commission, headed by Mr. Balfour, arrived 
on May eleventh, the home of Mr. and Mrs. 
Vincent Astor was placed at their disposal. The 
party came over from Hoboken, amid hooting 
craft, to Battery Place. Whistles blew, bells 
rang, flags were waved, and at every skyscraper 
window faces appeared, looking out on the river 
to welcome the distinguished guests to the me- 
tropolis. When they landed, Mayor Mitchel and 
a delegation of prominent citizens greeted the 
party first at the City Hall. A more splendid 



44 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

reception no visitor to our shores ever received. 
Over two thousand schoolgirls, dressed in white 
middy blouses and dark blue skirts, with red 
hair-ribbons, each carrying a flag, were lined up 
on the lawn before the City Hall; and behind 
these, a column of Boy Scouts, in picturesque 
khaki, in mass and pyramid formations, stood 
ready to salute. 

In a crowded room, in the presence of New 
York officials, aldermen, and distinguished citi- 
zens, Mayor Mitchel formally received the mis- 
sion. With him was our former Ambassador to 
Great Britain, Joseph H. Choate, who has since 
died. Mr. Choate made a brief address of wel- 
come, and then he said, with deep feeling in his 
voice : 

We hesitated, we doubted, we hung back, not from 
any lack of sympathy, not from any lack of enthusi- 
asm, not because we did not know what was the right 
path; but how to take it and when to take it was 
always the question. I feared at one time that we 
might enter into it for some selfish purpose, for the 
punishment of aggressions against our individual, na- 
tional, personal rights, for the destruction of Ameri- 
can ships or of a few American lives — ample ground 
for war ; but we waited, and it turns out now that we 
waited wisely, because we were able at last to enter 
into this great contest of the whole world for a noble 
and lofty purpose, such as never attracted nations be- 
fore. We are entering into it under your lead, sir, 
for the purpose of the vindication of human rights, 



THE NEW YORK WELCOME 45 

for the vindication of free government throughout the 
world, for the establishment — by and by; soon, we 
hope; late, it may be — of a peace which shall endure 
and not a peace that shall be no peace at all. 

Fortunately, we have now no room for choice. 
Under the guidance of the President, we stand pledged 
now before all the world to all the allies whom we 
have joined to carry into this contest all that we have, 
all that we hope for, and all that we ever aspire unto. 
We shall be in time to take part in that peace which 
shall forever stand and prevent any more such national 
outrages as commenced this war on the side of Ger- 
many. We have been only thirty days in the war, and 
already it has had a marvellous effect upon our own 
people. Before that there was apathy, there was indif- 
ference, there was indulgence in personal pursuits, in 
personal prosperity; but to-day every young man in 
America and every old man, too, is asking: "What 
can I do best to serve my country?" 

Mr. Balfour then spoke as follows: 

Those who had the good fortune to drive through 
the streets of the city up to this hall, I am sure must 
have been astounded at the whole-hearted exhibition 
of enthusiasm which, from every street, from every 
window, from every house, made itself visible and 
audible to the spectators. Seldom have I seen a sight 
— and my experience, alas, is an old one — seldom, or 
never, have I seen a sight so deeply moving; never 
have I seen a sight which went more to the heart. If, 
on the other side of the Atlantic, where the stress and 
strain of battle seem sometimes hard to sustain, they 
could have one glimpse of the sympathies shown them 



46 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

in this vast and noble community, it would give them, 
if there be faint hearts — I have not heard of them on 
the other side — if faint hearts there be, they indeed 
would regain new strength, new courage, new enthu- 
siasm, new resolution, and they would feel again, if 
they ever ceased to feel" it, that firm determination to 
carry through at all sacrifices this great struggle to its 
appointed end, which, after all, is the very strength 
and nerve of the allied forces. 

Never in all her history did New York turn out 
so spontaneously to welcome a distinguished man. 
The streets were packed at all hours ; and people 
waited interminably on the chance of catching a 
glimpse of Mr. Balfour and his party. Long 
before the traffic policemen on bicycles and mo- 
torcycles cleared the way, the cheers and cran- 
ing of necks began. The American metropolis 
frankly laid its work aside and abandoned itself 
to a long holiday. Like a beautiful woman, it 
draped itself in all its finery; and it borrowed the 
bright colours of its allied friends and wove them 
into wonderful designs along the avenues every- 
where. There wasn't a shop or a home that 
didn't put out its flag, and most of them were not 
content unless they displayed the union jack too. 
Fifth Avenue never looked lovelier. From the 
Battery to the Bronx the streets were aflame with 
bunting, alive with bands. New York knows how 
to entertain; and she was certainly in the right 
mood during those momentous days. 



BANQUET AT WALDORF-ASTORIA 47 

TH£ BANQUET AT THE) WALDORF-ASTORIA 

In front of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel there 
was a particularly splendid display of the allied 
banners; for a great banquet was to take place 
here on the evening of May twelfth in honour of 
both the French and British Commissions. Over 
a thousand of the city's leading citizens were 
present. The only two living ex-Presidents came, 
Taft and Roosevelt; likewise the Governor of the 
State of New York. The Mayor's Reception 
Committee had arranged the dinner, and it was 
probably the most wonderful banquet ever given 
in America. 

The order in which the guests were seated at 
the high speakers' table was as follows, reading 
from left to right: 

William Fellowes Morgan, President of the Merch- 
ants' Association. 

W. T. Layton of the Ministry of Munitions. 

E. H. Outerbridge, President of the Chamber of 
Commerce, State of New York. 

Sir Eric Drummond. 

Dudley Field Malone, Collector of the Port of New 
York. 

The Marquis de Chambrun member of the Cham- 
ber of Deputies. 

Rear Admiral Nathaniel R. Usher, U. S. Navy. 

Rear Admiral Sir Dudley R. S. de Chair, K. C. B., 
M. V. O. 

Frank L. Polk, Counsellor of the State Department, 



48 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

Vice Admiral Chocheprat, Senior Vice Admiral of 
the French Navy. 

Joseph H. Choate, Chairman, Mayor's Citizens' 
Committee. 

Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, British Ambassador. 

Theodore Roosevelt. 

Marshal Joffre. 

Charles S. Whitman, Governor of the State of New 
York. 

The Right Hon. Arthur James Balfour. 

J. P. Mitchel, Mayor of New York. 

Rene Viviani. 

William M. Calder, United States Senator. 

Jules J. Jusserand, the French Ambassador, 

William H. Taft. 

Sir Thomas White, Minister of Finance of Canada. 

Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler. 

Gen. G. T. M. Bridges, C. M. G., D. S. O. 

Major Gen. Leonard Wood, U. S. A. 

The Right Hon. Lord Cunliffe. 

W. A. Prendergast. 

Sir S. H. Lever. 

General Harry F. Hodges. 

M. Hovalacque. 

Horace Porter. 

Ian Malcolm, M. P. 

Hugh Gibson. 

Joseph H. Choate again delivered the principal 
speech on behalf of the city. He followed Mayor 
Mitchel, and said, in part: 

America, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the 
Lakes to the Gulf, America has learned what this war 



THE MEANING OF THE WAR 49 

is about, what it is for — that it is for the establishment 
of freedom against slavery, for the vindication of free 
government against tyranny, and oppression, and au- 
tocracy, and all the other horrible names that you can 
apply to misgovernment. When it came to that, there 
was but one question for America, and our President 
at Washington has solved it for us. Nobody can tell 
how far he saw ahead any more than we at this mo- 
ment can tell how far we can see ahead. 

THE MEANING OP THE WAR 

Mr. Balfour spoke of the meaning of the war, 
and his speech follows: 

I have not come here authorised by my Govern- 
ment to set myself up or to set my friends up as in- 
structors of the great American people. They know 
and you know how to manage your affairs, and do not 
require us to teach you. It may be, it probably is, the 
fact, that a study of the history of this war will show 
those who run and desire to read that there are cer- 
tain mistakes which a great democracy, imperfectly 
prepared for war, may easily make. We shall be 
happy to describe these mistakes to you, if happily it 
will be your desire to learn the lesson from them. But 
I do not propose either now or at any other occasion 
to set myself up as an adviser or monitor on these 
great themes. It is enough that I proclaim my unal- 
terable conviction that we have reached a moment in 
the world's history on which the future, not of this 
country, but of every country, not of its interests, but 
of every interest of civilisation is trembling in the bal- 
ance. At that critical moment it is my bounden duty 



50 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

to raise my voice and to appeal to all who will listen 
to me to-day in the great task which we have been 
bearing for two and a half years, and which you 
have cheerfully and generously determined to take the 
weight of upon your own shoulders. . . . 

Why is it that the people of this great city have 
come forth instinctively — I was going to say by thou- 
sands,; I feel inclined to say by millions — to show their 
enthusiasm for the cause you have taken up? It is be- 
cause they instinctively feel what is the vital issue at 
stake, because they instinctively feel that it is neither 
desirable nor, were it desirable, possible for this great 
Republic to hold itself aloof from a world in suffering 
and not do its part to redeem mankind. 

Surely it is a significant fact that here we are, the 
representatives of three great democracies, in the very 
heart of New York, to plead a common cause. What 
has brought us all together? What is the meaning of 
this unique gathering? What is the meaning of the 
multitude crowding your streets to-day and yesterday? 
It is a shallow view to suppose that each of these great 
nations has had a separate and different cause of con- 
troversy with the enemy — that Russia was dragged 
in because of Serbia, that France was dragged in be- 
cause of Russia, that Great Britain was dragged in be- 
cause of the violation of Belgian territory, and that the 
United States has been dragged in because of the 
piratical warfare of the German submarines. 

All those causes are, each of them, and separately, 
no doubt a sufficient reason, but for a moment to con- 
sider this war carried on by the Allies as that of sepa- 
rate interests, separate causes of controversy, is an 
utterly inadequate and false view of the situation. 
These are but symptoms of the absolute necessity in 




LIEUT.-GENERAL G. T. M. BRIDGES, C.M.G., D.S.O., AND REAR-ADMIRAL 
SIR DUDLEY DE CHAIR, R.N., K.C.B., M.V.O., OFFICER OF THE 
LEGION OF HONOR. 

The Chief Naval and Military members of the Mission. 



THE MEANING OF THE WAR 51 

which a civilised world finds itself, to deal with an im- 
minent and overmastering peril. What is that peril? 
What is it we feel that we have got to stop? I will 
tell you my view of it. It is the calculated and re- 
morseless use of every civilised weapon to carry out 
the ends of pure barbarism. To us of English speech 
it seems impossible, incredible, that a nation should 
clearly set itself to work and co-ordinate every means 
of science, every means that knowledge, that industry 
can provide, not for the bettering of its own people, 
but for the demolition of other peoples. 

The history of the world is too full of the ad- 
ventures of unscrupulous ambition. We know, all 
through history, of men who have endeavoured, at the 
cost of others, to expand their own State. Within 
the last century, or a little more, we have seen men of 
genius trying to coerce the world. But this is not a 
case of a new Napoleon arising to carry out a new ad- 
venture. This is not a case of adventure, of a genius 
seeking to satisfy his ambition within the limits of 
his own country. 

It is something far different and far more dan- 
gerous for mankind. It is the settled determination to 
use every means to put the whole world at her feet. 
We all know it is a commonplace that science has enor- 
mously expanded the means by which men can kill 
each other. Modern destruction is carried out as 
much in the laboratory of your universities as it is 
on the field of battle, but we have always believed, 
we have always hoped, that this increased power of 
destruction would be limited and controlled by the 
growing forces of humanity and civilisation. We 
have been taught, not by Germany, but by those who 
rule Germany, by the military caste which controls 



52 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

Germany — we have been taught a different lesson, and 
we now know not merely that every scientific weapon 
will be put in force to make war more horrible than it 
was in barbarous times, but that even the rights of 
civilisation, of trade, of commerce, even the intercom- 
munication between different peoples, will be used for 
the same sinister object. 

Ladies and gentlemen that is the danger we have 
to meet, and if at this moment the world is bathed 
in blood and tears from the highlands of distant Ar- 
menia down to the very fields of France, almost within 
sight of the Straits of Dover — if we have seen a reck- 
less destruction of life, not merely of soldiers but 
of civilians; if we have seen peaceful communities 
dragged through the mire, ruined, outraged ; if horror 
has been heaped upon horror, until really we almost 
get callous in reading our newspapers in the morning 
— if all these things are true, shall we not rise up and 
resist them? 

Shall we who know what freedom is become the 
humble and obsequious servants of those who only 
know what power is? That will never be tolerated. 
The free nations of the earth are not thus to be crushed 
out of existence, and if any proof is required that that 
consummation is impossible, it is a gathering like this 
where the three great democracies of the West are 
joined together under circumstances unique in the 
whole history of the world. 

And that fact should also give strength and conso- 
lation to those who, feeling the magnitude of the issue 
at stake, are inclined to doubt how the contest will end. 
But we will fail unless all here who love liberty are 
prepared to labour together, to fight together, to make 
our sacrifices in common — unless that happens we may 



CHAMBER OF COMMERCE LUNCHEON 53 

be destroyed piecemeal and the civilisation of the 
world may receive a wound from which it will not 
easily recover. 

M. Viviani, of course, also spoke, in French. 
He said that the Kultur of Germany was all very 
well until its interests were crossed, and then it 
became like a wild beast. Germany did not know 
the spirit of England, of France, of Russia. "You 
in America," he went on, in his impassioned way, 
"cannot realise, cannot imagine the suffering and 
horror of what war has meant to France and her 
people. But you will arouse yourselves to the 
battle for liberty, justice, democracy, and hu- 
manity. ... I see before me now the might 
and strength of Germany and realise that it must 
— that it will — be overthrown." 

After this great banquet, Mr. Balfour went to 
the home of Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt. 
There Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, President of 
Columbia University, presented him with the 
diploma of Doctor of Laws. Mr. Balfour seemed 
greatly moved ; and in his speech in reply he said 
that he had never been so touched in all his life 
as at the thrilling reception New York had given 
him and his party. 

THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE LUNCHEON 

The New York Chamber of Commerce ten- 
dered a luncheon to Mr. Balfour, at which more 



54 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

than a thousand people were present. Mr. E. H. 
Outerbridge, the President, presided, and Mr. 
Balfour was again given a fine ovation when he 
rose to express his thanks and to say that the 
dream of his whole life had been to see "the union 
between the English-speaking, freedom-loving 
branches of the human race drawn far closer 
than in the past, the time when all temporary- 
causes of difference which may ever have sepa- 
rated the two great peoples would be seen in their 
true and just proportion; and," he went on, "I 
hope we shall all realise, on whatever side of the 
Atlantic fortune has placed us, that the things 
wherein we have differed in the past sink into 
absolute insignificance when compared with those 
vital agreements which at all times, but never 
more than at such a time as the present, unite 
us in one great spiritual whole." 

In alluding to the bonds between the English- 
speaking races, he said: 

You have absorbed in your midst many admirable 
citizens drawn from all parts of Europe, whom Ameri- 
can institutions and American ways of thought have 
moulded and are moulding into one great people. I 
rejoice to think it should be so. A similar process on 
a small scale is going on in the self-governing domin- 
ions of the British Empire. It is a good process, it 
is a noble process. Let us never forget that wherever 
be the place in which that great and beneficent process 
is going on, whether it be in Canada, whether it be in 



CHAMBER OF COMMERCE LUNCHEON 55 

Australia, or whether on the largest scale of all it be in 
the United States of America, the spirit which the im- 
migrant absorbs is the spirit in all these places largely 
due to a historic past in which your forefathers and 
my forefathers, gentlemen, all had their share. 

In speaking of the Chairman's reference to the 
splendid work of the British fleet, Mr. Balfour 
said: 

Does anybody think that if the sea power were 
transferred from British to German hands the histo- 
rian of the future could say the same of the German 
fleet? By their fruits we know them. Deliberately 
brought into existence in the hope that it would break 
down that naval power which the German autocracy — 
not the German people, but the German autocracy — 
recognises as one of the greatest bulwarks of freedom, 
and one of the most powerful defences against world 
domination, knowing that instinctively, they have been 
feverishly building for eighteen or twenty years in or- 
der that, if it might be so, they could destroy the coun- 
try with which they had no quarrel, and no cause of 
quarrel, but which they regarded with an instinctive 
and unalterable jealousy. They have been disap- 
pointed. Their fleet remains safely in the harbour. 

What puts out to sea is not the battleship or the 
battle cruiser; there is no successor of the great fleets 
of ancient times; but the submarine which, in their 
hands, finds its natural prey in the destruction of de- 
fenceless merchantmen and the butchery of defence- 
less women and children. I will do the German fleet 
the justice to say that I do not believe that this was 
its ideal when this war started, or when its ships were 



56 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

tinder construction. What I do say is that the use 
which the German governing classes are now making 
of this new weapon, while it will never decide the issue 
of this war, nevertheless indicates a menace to the 
future commerce of the world which must be abso- 
lutely stopped for the future. Under the old mari- 
time laws, which the United States and Great Britain 
in particular have always recognised, fleets undoubt- 
edly did interfere with the commerce of any enemy 
belligerents, and it is very difficult to see how that 
could or ought to be avoided until that happy time 
comes when war is neither on land nor sea permitted 
to interfere with private rights, or indeed permitted to 
go on at all. 

But, gentlemen, maritime warfare as it has been 
carried on by civilised nations in the past has been a 
human affair, carried out under recognised laws, un- 
der which as little injury was done to the neutral trader 
as was possible under the circumstances, compared to 
the abominations which are now insisted upon by the 
German staff. Huge tracts of ocean are marked out 
at the arbitrary will of one belligerent, and within 
these vast areas neutrals, peaceable traders, do not 
merely have their ships taken in, adjudged in the prize 
court, dealt with, and non-belligerent life carefully re- 
garded, but they are sunk at sea, no examination, no 
knowledge of what is in the ship, no knowledge of the 
character of the crew, no knowledge of whether there 
are or are not passengers aboard, no knowledge of the 
goods which are being transported, of the place from 
which they came or the destination designed. That, 
gentlemen, is carrying out the methods of barbarism, 
and in a manner which would have been regarded as 
incredible even in Germany two years ago. It has 



CHAMBER OF COMMERCE LUNCHEON 57 

been carried out by a Government which, when it 
thought worth while for diplomatic reasons, was never 
wearied of talking of the freedom of the seas. 

But it is a method of conducting warfare which 
in its indirect consequences, as well as its direct conse- 
quences, is of such a character that the civilised world 
must, when this war is over, take effectual precautions 
against its repetition. For, if not, it seems to me that, 
whenever two countries go to war, and whenever it 
suits the least scrupulous of the belligerents, not 
merely will a great wrong have been inflicted upon its 
opponent, but the commerce of the whole civilised 
world will be disorganised and destroyed. That is im- 
possible to tolerate. And this Chamber has under its 
guardianship the interests of trade and commerce, and 
it is of all bodies the one most interested in seeing that, 
so long as wars are still permitted — and I hope that 
will not be long — maritime warfare shall be conducted 
under methods consistent with public law, consistent 
with ordinary humanity, consistent with those funda- 
mental principles of morality which underlie — or 
ought to underlie — all law. 

When this tremendous conflict has drawn to its ap- 
pointed close, and when, as I believe, victory shall 
have crowned our joint efforts, there will arise not 
merely between nations but within nations a series of 
problems which will tax all our statesmanship to deal 
with. I look forward to that time, not, indeed, wholly 
without anxiety, but in the main with hope and with 
confidence; and one of the reasons for that hope and 
one of the foundations of that confidence is to be 
found in the fact that your nation and my nation will 
have so much to do with the settlement of the ques- 
tions, 



58 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

I do not think anybody will accuse me of being 
insensible to the genius and to the accomplishments of 
other nations. I am one of those who believe that 
only in the multitude of different forms of culture can 
the completed movement of progress have all the va- 
riety in unity of which it is capable; and, while I ad- 
mire other cultures, and while I recognise how abso- 
lutely all-important they are to the future of mankind, 
I do think that among the English-speaking peoples is 
especially and peculiarly to be found a certain political 
moderation in all classes which gives one the surest 
hope of dealing in a reasonable, progressive spirit with 
social and political difficulties. And without that rea- 
sonable moderation interchanges are violent, and as 
they are violent, reactions are violent also, and the 
smooth advance of humanity is seriously interfered 
with. 

I believe that on this side of the Atlantic, and I 
hope on the other side of the Atlantic, if and when 
these great problems have actively to be dealt with, it 
will not be beyond the reach of your statesmanship, 
or of our own, to deal with them in such a manner 
that we cannot merely look back upon this great war 
as the beginning of a time of improved international 
relations, of settled peace, of deliberate refusal to pour 
out oceans of blood to satisfy some notion of domina- 
tion; but that in addition to those blessings the war, 
and what happens after the war, may prove to be the 
beginning of a revivified civilisation, which will- be felt 
in all departments of human activity, which will not 
merely touch the material but also the spiritual side of 
mankind, and which will make the second decade of 
the twentieth century memorable in the history of 
mankind, 



BALFOUR VISITS ROOSEVELT 59 

A MESSAGE TO THE) ST££lv WORKERS 

Through Representative John G. Cooper, Mr. 
Balfour sent, on May seventh, a message to the 
steel workers of the Mahoning Valley. It read: 

I hope you will on my behalf give a very warm 
greeting to the steel workers of the Mahoning Valley, 
I know well that they have fully realised the vital 
importance of this war to the security and honour of 
their country and to the cause of freedom throughout 
the world. I hope that they will also realise how 
much they can do in their individual capacity for the 
common cause of promoting the output of material on 
which a plentiful supply SO' much depends. 

It is only through strenuous exertion and zealous 
co-operation of the allied belligerent powers that vic- 
tory is possible. With these assured, then victory is 
not merely possible, but assured. 

BA^OUR VISITS R00SEV£I/T 

It was on Sunday afternoon, May thirteenth, 
that Mr. Balfour made his mysterious visit to 
Sagamore Hill to see his old acquaintance, Theo- 
dore Roosevelt. These two great men had met 
in 19 10, after the Colonel's return from his 
famous African hunt, and again in 1914, when 
Roosevelt stopped in England after returning 
from Madrid, where he had attended the wedding 
of his son Kermit. 

What they said to each other on this particular 



60 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

day no one knows; but Mr. Balfour remained 
with the Colonel for four hours. Neither gave 
out an interview after the visit, and even the 
most diligent press correspondents failed to get 
an inkling of what -took place. Some of the 
papers had it that Colonel Roosevelt's proposed 
division for Prance was mentioned. Perhaps it 
was. At any rate, Mr. Balfour did not leave 
Sagamore Hill until about ten o'clock — he had 
remained for "high tea" — and the Colonel waved 
good-bye to him from the veranda. There had 
been no other guests, save Mr. Balfour's parlia- 
mentary secretary, Ian Malcolm, and Colonel 
Roosevelt's son, Quentin. 

HONOURED BY THE PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY 

On May seventeenth Mr. Balfour was hon- 
oured by the Phi Beta Kappa Society, through an 
initiation conducted by Lyon G. Typer, President 
of the College of William and Mary, Virginia. 
The brief ceremony took place at the Long resi- 
dence, in Washington, which was occupied by the 
British Commission. In his speech of acceptance, 
Mr. Balfour said: 

Mr. President and Brethren of the Phi Beta Kappa 
Society: I, on behalf of myself and on behalf of my 
friends, thank you for allowing us to take part in 
this service, the memory of which will rest with us 
as long as life exists. You have welcomed us as the 



HONOURED BY PHI BETA KAPPA 61 

mission from Great Britain. You have welcomed 
those members of the mission who belonged to sister 
universities on the other side of the Atlantic, and you 
have conferred upon us the highest honour which you 
can give or which is in our power to receive. We 
most sincerely thank you for what you have done. 

In the eloquent and moving speeches which have 
to-day been delivered by your President and others 
who have taken part in the ceremonies, little has been 
said of matters strictly academic. They were present 
to our minds, but they lay, and rightly lay, in the back- 
ground. You who are present represent, and, in a 
lesser degree, I suppose we can claim to represent, the 
academic life and training of the two great countries, 
and the fact that we should meet together and deal in 
the main with matters which are international and 
political, rather than with matters which are in the 
strictest and narrowest sense academic, shows the 
great truth, or what I deem to be a great truth, that 
learning and study, if they be divorced from the reali- 
ties of life and social life, lose more than half their 
worth. 

I understand, and others this morning have re- 
minded us, that this meeting is a symbol of all that 
represents the culture and education, or most of what 
represents the culture and education, in these two great 
nations that are now united in the pursuit of one great 
common cause. Let us take it for granted, then. 

The history of the society, of which we are the 
youngest members, is a happy illustration of the truth 
which I have just insisted upon; for, if I rightly un- 
derstand the history of the society, it was born in the 
stress and conflict of a great national crisis. The 
crisis we are living through to-day is possibly a greater 



62 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

crisis than that which struck this country in 1776. It 
is one the importance of which extends far beyond 
the boundaries of this community and touches the 
whole world, not in America alone, not in Europe 
only, but wherever the ideals of Christian civilisation 
have come to flourish. 

Gentlemen, it surely is a great thing to feel that 
all of us who have in common a university training, 
whether it has been carried out here or in Britain, 
have the same noble traditions which have been main- 
tained for all these centuries ; it is a great thing to feel 
that we are one. You, Mr. President, observed, with 
truth, that we are largely if not wholly of a common 
stock, but that blood is but a poor cement — I think 
that was your phrase — is but a poor and weak cement, 
if that which it is meant to cement is not bound to- 
gether by ties, spiritual ties, more fervent and more 
gripping than anything that could be conferred by any 
accident of heredity. That surely is so. 

Whether they are students of American universi- 
ties or whether they are students of British universi- 
ties, they have a bond of union stronger than language, 
than literature, than law. Stronger these bonds are 
and should be. They have the bond of common hopes, 
of common purposes, of nations making common sac- 
rifices for one great end, and that end is not only that 
of American universities and British universities, not 
merely the future culture or economic progress of these 
two great and free communities, but in addition to 
these causes, in themselves sufficiently great to fill the 
minds and kindle the imaginations of even the most 
sluggish, we can surely say for ourselves that we have 
in our guardianship, gathered here to-day, that we 
have in our keeping, the future freedom of the world, 



RICHMOND 63 

and that success in our efforts means the future civili- 
sation of the world. 

These are thoughts which I should hardly have 
ventured to refer to on such an occasion as this, be- 
fore a society so strictly academic in its character as 
this, had not the example been set in the noble address 
of your President and others, and I should otherwise 
not have trespassed beyond the relatively narrow 
bounds of purely academic interests and ventured to 
go into those wider spheres of policy and humanity 
which are in all our thoughts at this great and solemn 
moment of our history. 

On behalf of my friends and myself I beg to 
thank you for the greatest honour which you could 
possibly confer or which we could possibly receive. 

After this speech, Mr. Balfour called on the 
President to say good-bye. 

RICHMOND 

Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, rich 
in the traditions of the old English cavalier days, 
welcomed the mission on May nineteenth, in the 
name of the whole South, with a warmth and 
spontaneity unequalled during the mission's stay 
in this country. Received with a salute of nine- 
teen guns, entertained at the historic executive 
mansion amidst the portraits of many Royal gov- 
ernors, and acclaimed to the echo at a crowded 
mass-meeting at the auditorium, Mr. Balfour and 
his fellow officials probably felt more at home 



64 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

in the old Confederate capital than at any other 
place they stopped. 

The mission was particularly desirous, on its 
official call upon the South, to pay homage to the 
gallant Southern leaders who fought so bravely a 
half century ago. Lieut-General Bridges placed 
wreaths in the name of the British army on the 
tombs of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and 
General J. E. B. Stuart and made the earnest 
prediction that the lessons of leadership, courage, 
and endurance taught by those men would not 
find their succesors unworthy of their memories 
to-day. 

Mr. Balfour, after a triumphal procession 
through the flag-decked streets to the auditorium, 
was greeted by a large Southern audience which 
showed how truly its two great struggles of the 
past had been forgotten by singing both "God 
Save the King" and "The Star Spangled Ban- 
ner." After expressing his joy at the decision 
to send American troops to Europe, Mr. Balfour 
said: 

Out of the manhood of America there will flow, I 
am sure, the best fighting material in the world, and 
the only limit to that flow will be the limit imposed by 
the material difficulties of transport and equipment. 
The United States has greater resources for modern 
warfare than any other nation in the world. I do not 
Tefer to numbers alone; I refer rather to that courage, 
resolution, inventiveness, which alone make numbers 



RICHMOND 65 

efficient. Though unprepared, as we were unprepared, 
you are filled with that spirit which will bring results 
as encouraging to your friends as they will be discour- 
aging to your foes. 

Germany cannot succeed in this war. Success does 
not lie along the paths of frightfulness and ruthless- 
ness. That nation which has known no law, either 
of charity or of love, which has cast all scruples to the 
wind, which has allowed no consideration to stand in 
its way, that nation has raised up outraged civilisation 
to make certain its own defeat. 

Mr. Balfour regretted deeply that time did not 
permit a longer tour through the South. And if 
Richmond's reception could be any augury, that 
feeling would indeed be well-founded, for the 
city was given over body and soul to its distin- 
guished visitors. 

One of the most amusing incidents of Mr. 
Balfour's whole visit occurred on the way home. 
By special request of a few leading townspeople, 
the train stopped for a few minutes at Fredericks- 
burg for a scene which w T ould have dumbfounded 
Mr. Balfour's more old-fashioned friends. Great 
Britain's Foreign Secretary, tall, earnest, with a 
finely intellectual face, came out onto the rear 
platform of the train to greet a motley group of 
swarthy, dirt-grimed railroad men, coloured 
ragamuffins, mystified hangers-on, and a small 
official reception committee in formal dress, who 
handed up to him a bouquet of roses. 



66 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

Mr. Balfour, strangely enough, made one of 
the warmest speeches of his whole trip. Mean- 
while, Bill Nye, the ubiquitous Secret Service 
man, familiar with rear-end speeches through his 
trips with the Presidents, stood watch in hand 
beside him to time three minutes. Time up, Bill 
reached out his hand to twitch the speaker's coat- 
tail, remembered it was not a President but a 
British Foreign Secretary who was speaking, and 
lost his nerve. Four minutes passed, five; the 
engineer tooted, the conductor shouted "All 
aboard," Bill's fingers got more and more nerv- 
ous, and still felicitous phrases flowed from Mr. 
Balfour's lips. Finally, after seven minutes, the 
train got under way. 

Mr. Balfour laughed about it afterwards and 
referred to it himself as his "electioneering tour." 

CHICAGO R£GR£TFUI,I,Y OMITTED 

It had been planned, of course, that the British 
Mission should pay a visit to Chicago ; but it was 
found that there was too much to be done in 
Washington and New York to make the trip pos- 
sible. It must be remembered that the British 
Mission was a working mission. Meetings were 
held, even at breakfast, between the United 
States officials and the members of the British 
Mission. Not a moment was lost. Afterwards, 
from the border, Mr. Balfour sent a warm mes- 



SPEECH BEFORE COTTON MEN 67 

sage to Mayor Thompson and the city of Chicago, 
regretting that he could not find time to visit the 
metropolis of the Middle West. 

The president cai^s on ba^our 

On Ma}^ twenty-first President Wilson called 
upon Mr. Balfour at the British Mission, and 
spent almost an hour with him. There was, how- 
ever, no report given out as to what they dis- 
cussed. The shipping situation, which was con- 
ceded to be one of vast importance, was talked 
over by Mr. Balfour twice that same afternoon, — 
once with his own trade experts and later with 
Chairman Denman and General Goethals then of 
the Shipping Board. 

THE SPEECH B£FOR£ THE COTTON MANUFAC- 
TURERS 

American cotton manufacturers met in Wash- 
ington on May twenty-second, to appoint a War 
Committee for co-operation with the Govern- 
ment, and they were addressed by Mr. Balfour, 
who was introduced by Secretary of the Navy 
Daniels. His reception was most enthusiastic. 
In return, he said: 

None of us suspected when this great war was 

started that the United States, thousands of miles 

away, would be drawn into it. And yet I think in 

"looking back that the logic of events was irresistible. 



68 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

From the beginning there has been but one choice, and 
that choice inevitable. The United States has not 
hesitated to take it, and now that she has taken it she 
will not withdraw, I am confident, until the objects 
sought are attained. 

I Germany, by her insensate policies, has forced this 
country of unbounded resources to throw all her 
power, all her wealth, but, more than that, all her 
moral strength, into the issue. America seeks no vul- 
gar ends, no territorial aggrandisement, no mean gain. 
All of us would feel defeated and dishonoured if we 
did not leave the world free from the menace that is 
hanging over it, that has been growing every decade, 
yes, every month, more dangerous. 

Only the historian of the far future will be able to 
see all the causes and all the cross currents of this 
monster struggle. We here to-day cannot project our 
gaze sufficiently to envisage it all. The world's his- 
tory has been full of the outpourings of blood, the 
squandering of money and the wastage of resources 
in war, and in almost every case the impartial histo- 
rian has been able to find something to say for both 
sides. I do honestly feel, however, that there will be 
no hesitation or doubt possible in this present war. 

As the war began with the cynical, outrageous op- 
pression of a little nation away down in the Balkans 
and went through the brutal violation of another small 
country to the north, so it is continuing. No excuse 
can be offered for the cold-blooded, calculating ag- 
gression which has marked the course of the military 
autocracy, which has plunged not only Europe but 
every quarter of the civilised globe into untold suffer- 
ing and raised up for itself an undreamed-of ven- 
geance. 




THE HON. SIR ERIC DRUMMOND, K.C.M.G., C.B. 

Private Secretary to Mr. Balfour. 

Formerly Private Secretary to Lord Grey and Mr. Asquith. 



THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB SPEECH 69 

THE NATIONAL PRESS CX,UB SPEECH 

Before the National Press Club, on the after- 
noon of May twenty- fourth, in a farewell address 
in recognition of the gratitude expressed by the 
correspondents for his consideration of the press, 
Mr. Balfour spoke as follows: 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Press Club: 
You, sir, in your opening remarks, reminded me of 
the first day of my visit in this city and have quoted 
one or two things that I then appear to have said to 
the representatives of the press. That was about a 
month ago, and certainly, so far as I am concerned, 
the month that has elapsed since that fateful day has 
been filled with impressions the most pleasurable, the 
most momentous; impressions which will never fade 
from my memory while memory lasts ; impressions of 
which I hope to give some faint and imperfect account, 
it may be, but still some account, to those I have left 
on the other side of the Atlantic and who are engaged 
in the same great struggle and the same world work to 
which all of you are contributing so important a share. 

Gentlemen, I came to the United States conscious, 
of course, of the importance of the mission with which 
I have been intrusted by my Government; conscious, 
as your President has said this afternoon, that the mis- 
sion, from the very nature of the case, was one of the 
most important in which either of our two countries 
has ever concerned itself ; conscious that the very con- 
dition of the world in which we lived gave weight and 
importance to every action, to every word, and to every 
report of every word, which might take place during 
its existence. 



70 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

Now, gentlemen, nobody knows better than I how 
much you and the great press that you represent have 
contributed to whatever measure of success our mis- 
sion may have obtained. 

It is perfectly true that the primary duty intrusted 
to us was that of discussing with the Government of 
the United States the numberless matters of impor- 
tance which have to be decided if two great countries 
find themselves co-operating in one gigantic task. 

The kindness with which we were received, the 
warmth of the welcome which reached us from all 
parts of the country, soon made it plain that the strictly 
and narrowly business side of our mission was not the 
only one which was important at the present juncture. 
After all, the co-operation of two great countries is 
not merely the question of working through the instru- 
mentality of experts, the sending of men here or there, 
the proper distribution of your naval forces, the 
method by which the financial co-operation can best 
be secured, or all the other endless questions which 
have come up for daily discussion. Those are all im- 
portant. They do not stand alone. Something more 
than that, if a mission be fortunate, may come of its 
work, something which has not got to do with naval, 
military, or financial details, but which, in the phrase 
— I think it is of Burke — comes home to the feelings 
and bosoms of men. There is something in a sympa- 
thetic and mutual comprehension; there is something 
the worth of which cannot indeed be estimated 
merely by enumerating army corps or millions or bil- 
lions of dollars, the cataloguing of destroyers, but 
which is represented by something different, more spir- 
itual, as important: a sympathy of soul between two 
great and free peoples, who are not only engaged on a 



THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB SPEECH 71 

common task, but who are conscious of their mutual 
co-operation. 

Now, gentlemen, for my own part, I have felt 
more deeply than I find it easy to express the kindness 
of the reception which you have given to the mission 
in general and to myself in particular. That kindness 
has been shown me, lavishly shown me, in Washing- 
ton. It was shown not less fully and not less lavishly 
in New York and in Richmond, and I only mourn 
that the inevitable exigencies of public business make 
it impossible for me to visit other parts of the 
United States, to communicate directly and personally 
with men in the Middle West, in the Far West, and in 
other portions of this colossal territory, which is al- 
ready occupied by the most powerful community in 
the world, and which is, I think, destined in the future 
to have an abiding influence for all that makes for 
peaceful civilisation and freedom, and which has cer- 
tainly shown on the present occasion that a great com- 
munity can be moved to perform great sacrifices for an 
ideal which has in it nothing of selfishness, nothing of 
the petty appetite for power, nothing but a pure and 
unstained desire to benefit the cause of civilisation and 
of mankind. 

Gentlemen, that is the impression which I have re- 
ceived from the living intercourse that I have been 
able to have with a fraction — I admit, too small a 
fraction, but not an unimportant fraction — of this 
great State. It would have been impossible for me 
to have obtained the impressions I have received, or 
to have given the impressions I have desired to give, 
without the assistance of the press of this country. 

You, and those with whom you work, have, after 
all, supplied the sensory nerves which permeate the 



72 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

whole country from end to end and make what hap- 
pens in Washington or New York, or wherever it may 
be, the common property of the whole American peo- 
ple. It is a colossal power. It is a power whose mag- 
nitude it is very difficult — it is impossible, I think — to 
over-estimate. It is a power very easily abused. It 
is a power which those who possess it have to be cau- 
tious as to whether in the ordinary work of what, after 
all, has a business side, and purely a business side, they 
may not commit some injury to the public weal which 
they certainly never contemplated when they did it, 
and for which, perhaps, they might rarely regard them- 
selves as directly responsible. 

Gentlemen, you have shown, during the month's 
experience which I have had of your labours, shown 
that the American press is animated by the highest pa- 
triotic principles, that it is incapable, or has shown it- 
self, so far as I am concerned, as incapable of mis- 
representing or perverting in the smallest particular 
anything which I may have said or done. I know that 
it is to you and your friends that any word I have 
spoken, be it worth listening to or not worth listening 
to, at all events reaches unperverted those for whom it 
is intended. For that I wish to express to you my 
most grateful thanks for what you have done since I 
have been here. 

Your President quoted an appeal which I appear 
to have made — I have forgotten the exact circum- 
stance^ — to some of your number a month ago. Never 
was an appeal more generously listened to or more 
faithfully accepted, both in the spirit and the letter, 
and I beg most sincerely to thank you for the way in 
which you have exercised your duties in connection 
with the mission for which I am responsible. These 



THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB SPEECH 73 

are, I suppose, the last words that I shall say in public 
before I leave the hospitable area of your great coun- 
try. May I not only thank you, as I have just imper- 
fectly tried to do, for the share you have taken in any 
such success as the mission may have had, but may I, 
through you, thank that much larger public to whom 
you appeal for the unprecedented personal kindness 
which they have shown to me and to all those that 
accompany me. 

I came with high hopes to Washington. Those 
hopes have been far surpassed by the reality. I expect- 
ed, from what I knew of American friends on the 
other side of the Atlantic, that I should be received 
with kindness, with courtesy, and with sympathy; but 
the kindness, the courtesy and the sympathy which I 
have received are far in excess of anything which I 
dared hope for, or anything which I can pretend even 
to myself to have deserved. It is a sad thought to me 
that the moment of parting has come, and that those 
whom I looked upon as my friends before I knew 
them, and who have become my friends in very truth 
and indeed since I knew them, I shall be separated 
from, at all events, during the continuance of the pres- 
ent war. After that it may be my happy lot to return 
in a less responsible and official position to renew the 
connection for a moment severed by the tragic events 
in which we are all equally concerned. 

But, gentlemen, the mission could not stay here 
forever. It has received a welcome, a welcome which 
none of its members will forget, and to me falls the 
pleasant duty on my own behalf and on behalf of my 
friends, of saying to you and to all whom you can 
reach how deeply we thank the American public for 
what they have done, how warm our recollection of 



74 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

their kindness, and, above all and more than all, how 
we leave this country even more convinced than we 
came to it, that the United States of America, when 
they take a great cause in hand, a cause which appeals 
to none of the lower motives which animate communi- 
ties as they may animate individuals, which appeals 
only to what is highest and best in the national con- 
science, when, I say, the American people take in hand 
a cause of which that may be said, they are not going 
to relinquish the pursuit, they are not for a moment 
going to relax their endeavours to bring the great en- 
terprise to a successful conclusion, until that success- 
ful conclusion is indeed safely within our grasp. That 
is the message which I shall take away from these 
shores. 

There are those who have said that the preparations 
made by the United States are proceeding slowly and 
haltingly, and that a country which has been in the 
war for some forty days ought to have done far more 
than has actually been accomplished. For my own 
part, I think those who speak in accents like these 
know very little of the actual way in which public life 
is and must be carried on in free countries. At the 
beginning of the forty days of which I speak no prep- 
arations had been made; the country was anxiously, 
indeed, watching the events ; it had not begun to make 
any of the preparations necessary for taking a part in 
a gigantic struggle. 

I think that what has been performed in those 
forty days is most remarkable. It is quite true that 
the action of the Executive Government may be de- 
layed, and has been delayed, by the fact that certain 
measures placed before Congress took some time to 
pass; some of them have not yet passed. But I have 



THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB SPEECH 75 

lived with representative assemblies all my life, and 
who is it that supposes that representative assemblies 
are going to make great and new departures in public 
policy solely at the waving of a wand? Such ex- 
pectations are vain. It is useless to entertain them, 
and, for my own part, I am quite confident — I 
perhaps feel more confident than it seems to me one 
who has had no personal experience of American 
politics should feel — but, speaking for myself, I 
feel quite confident that Congress will not refuse to 
the President and the Government of the country all 
powers, great as they are, which are absolutely neces- 
sary if the war is to be successfully pursued. I am 
not only persuaded that it will give those powers, but 
I am persuaded that when these powers are given they 
will be used to the utmost with as little delay as the 
imperfection of human institutions and of human be- 
ings allow, to throw the great and, I believe, the de- 
cisive weight of America to the full extent into the 
great contest. 

That is my belief. In that belief I shall leave these 
shores. In that belief I shall make my report to the 
Allied Governments, so far as I can reach them, on 
the other side of the Atlantic, and in that belief I look 
forward with a cheerful confidence to days which will 
undoubtedly be days of trial and difficulty, but beyond 
which we can surely see the dawn of a happier day, 
coming not merely to the kindred communities to which 
we belong, but to all mankind and all nations which 
love liberty and pursue righteousness. 

Mr. President, I will say no more. I thank you. 
Through you I thank every well-wisher in America for 
all that you have done for me and for my friends. I 
wish you a farewell. I wish for a reunion at no dis- 



76 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

tant date under happier circumstances, when we can 
meet, not feeling that we have to deal with a great 
crisis which requires all our capacity, all our courage, 
and all our perseverance, but that we can look back 
upon trials already successfully passed, upon days hap- 
pily accomplished, upon a permanent peace for our- 
selves and for the rest of the world. Those are my 
hopes, Mr. President, and none can aid more effi- 
ciently than the gentlemen I am addressing in the ful- 
filment of the ideals which I am quite sure are common 
to all who speak our language, and to many others 
who sympathise with our aspirations. 
I beg to thank you. 

BACK TO CANADA 

On May twenty-fifth the Balfour party left 
United States soil and crossed into Canada. The 
conferences which had taken place were thought 
to have been of vast importance in shaping the 
policy of the war. 

Mayor Church, of Toronto, received Mr. Bal- 
four on the afternoon of the same day. A special 
guard of honour of fifty men from an overseas 
company of the 109th Battalion was lined up at 
the station. One of the speakers charged Mr. 
Balfour not to forget that he was among country- 
men now, as well as among friends, whereupon 
the distinguished statesman immediately replied : 

I did not need that invitation to entertain this sen- 
timent. I have left on the other side of the border a 



IN OTTAWA 77 

nation of friends. I come into Canada, to a great free 
country, composed not only of friends, but of country- 
men. We think the same thoughts, we live in the same 
civilisation, we belong to the same empire, and if any- 
thing could have cemented more closely the bonds of 
the empire, if anything could have made us feel that 
we were indeed of one flesh and one blood with one 
common history behind us, if anything could have ce- 
mented these feelings, it is the consciousness that now 
for two years and a half we have been engaged in this 
great struggle, in which, I thank God, all North Amer- 
ica is now as one. 

We have been engaged in this great struggle these 
two years and a half, fighting together, when necessary 
making all our sacrifices in common, working together 
toward a common and victorious end, which no doubt 
will crown our efforts. 

IN OTTAWA 

Mr. Balfour reached Ottawa on May twenty- 
seventh, where the Governor General's Foot 
Guards met him at the station and escorted him 
to Rideau Hall. Here they were formally re- 
ceived and welcomed by Sir Robert Borden, the 
Prime Minister, and many other Government 
officials. The next day, before the two houses 
of the Canadian Parliament, Mr. Balfour made a 
ringing speech, in which he declared that "democ- 
racy could not fail." Then he went on : 

I know the democracies of the Old World and the 
'New will come out of this struggle, not merely trium- 



78 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

phant in the military sense, but strengthened in their 
own inner life, more firmly convinced that the path of 
freedom is the only path to national greatness. 

I do not believe that anything more unexpected to 
the outside world ever occurred than the enthusiastic 
self-sacrifice with which the great self-governing Brit- 
ish dominions have thrown themselves into the great 
contest at the side of the motherland. 

Foreign speculators about the British Empire, be- 
fore the war began, said to themselves that this loosely 
constructed State resembled nothing that ever existed 
in history before, that it was held together by no coer- 
cive power, that the mother country could not raise a 
corporal's guard in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, 
or wherever you will; that she could not raise a shil- 
ling by taxation. 

She had no power except the power which a cer- 
tain class of politician never remembers — the moral 
power of affection, sentiment, common aims, and com- 
mon ideals. Even those of us who believed the new 
experiment of the British Empire was going to suc- 
ceed felt it was difficult that so vast an empire, so 
loosely knit, should be animated by one soul, or that 
the indirect thrill of common necessity should go from 
end to end. 

No greater miracle has ever happened in the his- 
tory of civilisation than the way in which the co-ordi- 
nated British democracies worked together with a 
uniform spirit of self-sacrifice in the cause in which 
they believed : not merely their own individual security, 
but the safety of the empire and the progress of civi- 
lisation, and liberty itself, were at stake. 



MR. BALFOUR'S FAREWELL 79 

MONTREAL — AND HOM£ AGAIN 

Montreal welcomed Balfour and his Commis- 
sion on May thirtieth, in fitting fashion. Soon 
thereafter, in secret, the entire British party 
sailed for England. 

It had been a triumphant tour from beginning 
to end. Soon the results will tell the story better 
than mere words. 

Back on home soil, the Manchester Guardian, 
perhaps the leading Liberal paper of England, 
printed this splendid editorial. America approves 
of such an envoy as is suggested. 

MR. BALFOUR'S FAR£w£U, 

Mr. Balfour, bidding farewell to the United States 
yesterday, remarked that "this mission could not stay 
forever." We are not sure. At least, if Mr. Balfour's 
Mission has been as great a success as every one ap- 
pears to agree that it has been, there would appear to 
be good reason why we should have either permanently 
or at frequent intervals in the United States a special 
envoy of his peculiar distinction and authority. Mr. 
Balfour has made an impression on American opinion, 
as we expected he would, alike by the fine tone of his 
utterances with regard to the cause of the Allies and 
the reasons which have drawn the United States into 
the war, and by his tact, courtesy, and accessibility. 
But he has also done a great deal of good spade-work 
in accomplishing his main object of making easier co- 
operation between the United States and the Allies. 



80 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

Many conferences have been held on all the chief as- 
pects of the conduct of the war, and various experts 
remain to carry on the task of mutual help. Mr. Bal- 
four returns to fulfil the second part of his duty, for 
he can now, again with a special degree of authority, 
give most valuable information to the British Govern- 
ment about the way in which America is organising 
herself for war, the precise aims which she has before 
her, and the kind of peace settlement that she has in 
view. His is thus a double service. We are certain 
that it has great value, and if so it should be worth 
repeating, whether by Mr. Balfour or another. We 
have suffered throughout the war from imperfect com- 
munication between the Allies. It is especially im- 
portant in the case of the United States that we should 
have as full and unbroken an understanding as is pos- 
sible between both Governments and peoples. 

The London Daily Mail, a Conservative organ, 
in speaking of the Balfour Mission, published this 
strong editorial. If Mr. Balfour had done noth- 
ing else, he should feel proud to have evoked such 
words after his American visit : 

The conclusion of Mr. Balfour's Mission to the 
United States has been marked in influential circles in 
America by tributes as warm as they are authoritative 
to the unqualified success the Foreign Secretary and 
his colleagues have achieved in their important and 
often delicate discussions with the administrative offi- 
cials of the United States. We are rightly told little 
more than generalities as to the contribution America 
is making to the resources of the Alliance, but enough 
is known to satisfy us that our latest Ally is already 



MR. BALFOUR'S FAREWELL 81 

doing far more than had ever been asked of her at this 
early stage. Her destroyers are on the Irish coast pro- 
tecting our commerce, her yards are working at full 
pressure on new hulls to carry our food, her munition 
factories are doing us such service that our own plans 
for industrial expansion can be abandoned. She is 
raising loans to supply her European Allies, she is lim- 
iting her own consumption that she may have food to 
export to them, she is equipping a division to go at 
once as an advance guard to France, she is preparing to 
reorganise the Russian railways, she announces that 
special efforts are. to be exerted to train aviators and 
build machines, "to ensure the blinding of the German 
batteries, and to prevent German aviators from con- 
ducting operations near the Allies' lines." 

Invaluable as such assistance is, it is only the first 
fruits. But even when in months to come the full tale 
of A_merica's material contribution is reckoned up it 
will be found in all likelihood to constitute the lesser 
part of her full service to the world. Mr. Balfour and 
President Wilson, it is stated, engaged in formal dis- 
cussions on the nature and basis of a post-war settle- 
ment. We need not scrutinise too closely the author- 
ity of the report which credits the two statesmen with 
identical views on that all-important theme, for Mr. 
Wilson's policy has been defined in unequivocal lan- 
guage, and we cannot doubt that the practical applica- 
tion of his principles would fall along lines that 
would commend themselves without reserve to the 
British Foreign Secretary. That is a factor of high 
importance in the evolution of the future world. The 
ideals for which we are contending in this war pro- 
voke no difference of opinion among Allies so long as 
they remain mere abstract ideals. But — to take a sin- 



82 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

gle ideal alone, the rights of nationalities, to which 
our allegiance is pledged — we shall gravely deceive 
ourselves if we suppose that a settlement on racial 
lines in Austria-Hungary, or the Balkans, or Asia Mi- 
nor, will create no heartburnings and impose no strain 
on loyalties among the Allies now fighting with a single 
spirit and a single purpose. We point the finger of 
suspicion at no one of the nations now in alliance with 
us. To us ourselves there will be strong temptations, 
in this quarter of the globe or that, to forsake for our 
own advantage that disinterested pursuit of an unself- 
ish ideal which our statesmen have repeatedly laid 
down as our guiding principle in the war. To a minor- 
ity in our own nation, and to like minorities among 
other Allied peoples, that temptation will make a 
strong appeal. It is essential that it shall be resisted, 
and no Power will do more to fortify the resistance 
than America. Her aims are above suspicion. She 
seeks no oversea empire. She has intervened in a 
European conflict with reluctance. If it should prove 
necessary that in the future she should guarantee solely 
or jointly the autonomy of some imperilled nation she 
will assume the responsibility only as an unwelcome 
duty. A great nation entering the Alliance in such a 
spirit makes a contribution that means more to the 
world than even her guns or her navies or her men. 

THE SPEECH BEFORE THE EMPIRE) PARLIAMENTARY 

ASSOCIATION 

Other English papers wrote with equal enthu- 
siasm when they welcomed Balfour home. The 
Times published a long account of a luncheon 
tendered the former Prime Minister by the Em- 



SPEECH BEFORE ASSOCIATION 83 

pire Parliamentary Association, of which Mr. 
Balfour is the chairman of the United Kingdom 
Branch, and Mr. Asquith, who presided, is the 
vice-president. After the latter had made a 
speech of welcome* Mr. Balfour replied as fol- 
lows : 

I admit that I undertook the headship of the mis- 
sion to the United States with the greatest reluctance 
and the greatest diffidence. The reluctance had many- 
causes. There was the ocean (laughter) — quite apart 
from submarines. Measured in the true proportions 
of terror, in fact, I should regard the submarine as the 
least possible evil that could affect me. (Laughter.) 
But Providence was kind from the beginning to the end 
of the mission, and the journey both ways across the 
Atlantic was performed under the happiest auspices, 
both of weather and everything else. The diffidence 
which I felt, however, had a deeper root even than the 
hatred of the sea. I felt it was very easy to do harm 
and not very easy to do good. On the whole, looking 
back I feel that no harm was done and that much good 
was accomplished. (Cheers.) If I may say so in the 
absence of my colleagues in the mission, they per- 
formed their different tasks with admirable discretion, 
great energy, and a full appreciation of all that is in- 
volved in the complex operation of bringing together 
the effective forces of two great communities like Brit- 
ain and the United States. Do not let anybody sup- 
pose for a moment that the success of the mission was 
due to the personal qualifications, whatever they may 
have been, of the members of the mission. It was 
due to far greater, far deeper, and, I would fain hope 



84 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

and believe, far more permanent causes than anything 
purely personal could be. 

The hospitality of the United States is proverbial, 
and I do not dwell at this time, though I would gladly 
do so on a fitting occasion, on the boundless hospitality 
and kindness shown us both by the Central Govern- 
ment, by the State Governments, by the cities, and by 
private individuals on the other side of the Atlantic. 
That hospitality was limitless. It was not merely for- 
mal and external, but obviously it came from the heart, 
and not one member of the mission will ever forget 
all the kindness that was continually shown us from 
the moment we crossed the frontier of the United 
States. I think that hospitality would have been shown 
whether the mission had been a success or whether it 
had not been a success. I think the generous hospital- 
ity of our friends on the other side of the Atlantic 
would have shown itself in any circumstances. 

What moves me most, and what I think moves the 
people in this country and in France, is something 
much deeper than this kindly hospitality — the spon- 
taneous exhibition of enthusiasm for the common 
cause. This had nothing whatever to do with the per- 
sonal qualifications or disqualifications of any individ- 
ual. It had to do with the deeper feeling of sympathy 
which manifestly animated the great American com- 
munity from North to South and East to West. It 
might have been in the power of emissaries who were 
either unfortunate or indiscreet to check that manifes- 
tation of feeling, but it was not in the power of indi- 
viduals, however endowed, to create it. It did not 
come from the mission. The mission was the occasion 
of its exhibition and not the cause of the exhibition, 
and that is the real value which has issued from any 



SPEECH BEFORE ASSOCIATION 85 

such public efforts of the mission. The result of those 
efforts has been to give to the great American com- 
munity the power of showing in the strongest, the most 
effective, and the most moving fashion what they felt 
of the great cause in which, as they knew, our Allies 
in France and we ourselves in this country have been 
engaged for nearly three years — the cause of world 
freedom. They knew the sacrifices that had been made 
and that were being made, they sympathised with the 
cause in which these sacrifices were undertaken and 
when the moment came in which they felt bound to 
show on which side they stood they welcomed any op- 
portunity of manifesting their deep moral &d spiritual 
agreement with the policy which is belrg pursued by 
their present Allies on this side of the Atlantic. That 
is the real significance of the mission of wjiich I was 
the head. That is the great result which it: is having 
and has had—a result the value of which cannot be 
measured by its effect on this war, great as this effect 
is likely to be, but which will, I hope, outlast in the 
history of the world the life of even the youngest of 
those whom I am now addressing. I regard this mis- 
sion not as the cause, but as the indication, of one of 
the most beneficent developments of international rela- 
tions which has ever occurred in the history of the 
world. (Cheers.) Most alliances, as students of his- 
tory know, are based upon the temporary hopes and 
temporary agreements of aim between nations which 
join together each for its own purpose, and whose al- 
liance lasts only so long as the same end benefits both 
countries. Such alliances are inevitably doomed. They 
are based upon temporary necessities, and when the 
occasion is over they vanish, leaving behind, it may be, 
friendly or unfriendly relations, but not leaving be- 



86 THE BALFOUR VISIT 

hind anything necessarily as a permanent basis. I 
hope, and I believe, that the co-operation in this war 
between Great Britain and America is not based upon 
the fact that each has something to get out of the war 
for itself, but is based upon a deep congruity and har- 
mony of moral feeling and moral ideals. That is its 
origin, and so also will be its history. It will endure 
as long as our two nations are content to pursue these 
great ideals, and I pray God it may be forever. 
(Cheers.) 

You may perhaps think I am drifting somewhat 
away from the subject of the great struggle in which 
we are all engaged. But, believe me, the considerations 
I have been bringing to your notice have, in fact, ref- 
erence, and an immense importance, in connexion with 
the present struggle. As our alliance and co-operation 
with the United States are based upon these great 
moral considerations, and not upon any desire of this 
country or of the United States to use the war as an 
instrument of expansion, so we may be quite certain 
that, as the United States have gone in with us for 
these great ends, they will never leave us till these great 
ends are accomplished. (Cheers.) There is nothing 
of which I am more certain than this — the United 
State, having put their hand to the plough, are not go- 
ing to turn back. They watched the course of events 
from the inception of this terrible war in August, 19 14, 
and, having studied the history which had led up to it, 
having carefully contemplated the whole play of inter- 
national forces in recent years, they have come to the 
conclusion that with the victory of the Allies is bound 
up the future of civilisation, as they and as we con- 
ceive it. It is a conflict between two ideals, both of 
which profess to be civilised — the German ideal, and 



SPEECH BEFORE ASSOCIATION 87 

what, at all events in this connexion, I may call the 
Anglo-Saxon ideal.. They are clear, as we are clear, 
that it is the second ideal which should regulate our 
policy, and they are not going to abandon any effort, 
or to refuse any sacrifice, any more than we are going 
to abandon any effort, or refuse any sacrifice, which 
may bring to a happy fruition a policy on which we are 
all convinced depends not only immediate prosperity 
for us and our children, but the whole trend of inter- 
national and civilised evolution, as far as human eyes 
and human powers of foresight can venture to pene- 
trate the future. These are not the fruits of the mis- 
sion, but I think the mission gave an occasion for the 
emphatic expression of them, and if that be valuable, 
and surely it is valuable, then we who took part in that 
mission may congratulate ourselves on its result. 
(Cheers.) 

Who can doubt that Balfour came — and con- 
quered ! 



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